Rise of the Jinchuuriki
by Beboots
Summary: After reigning for decades as Kages in their respective villages, Naruto and Gaara return back in time to their six year old selves. Challenge: who can win over their village and become the leader before the other?
1. The Game is Set

**Chapter One: ****The G****ame is ****S****et**

* * *

It wasn't that they had been bored, per se. 

It was just that they hadn't had anything else to do.

Having ruled for nearly seventy-five and sixty-eight years respectively, Kazekage Gaara and Hokage Naruto had simply seen it all, done it all, and so forth. The two of them were, well, getting old, even with the help of the demonic chakra that they both took as "rent" from their inner tenants.

And they were getting tired.

Even demonically enhanced bodies could only hold out for so long. Naruto, for one, was tired of waking up in the morning to find his joints stiff. He was only grateful that grey and white hair didn't show up very well against blond. He had that going for him, at least. Gaara's bright red hair showed white much more clearly, to Naruto's eternal glee.

There wasn't all that much more that they could do for their beloved villages.

They had both appointed successors to their seats in the villages; clever and strong shinobi to whom they had taught as much as they could. Their villages would survive without them.

And then, it had been time for something… new. Being the (now former) leaders of the two most powerful shinobi villages in the hidden continent for such a long period of time meant that they had acquired vast amounts of, well, everything: knowledge, political savvy, and, of course, tribute from less powerful villages. The scroll that they had needed had been given to Kazekage Gaara of the Desert in the eleventh year of his rule, as a part of a larger set of gifts from some of the little-known countries to the north. That scroll had apparently been written by one of the first Jinchuuriki of the seven-tails, in one of the older, demon tongues that had become a common language among tailed beasts and their vessels. Those who had given it to the Kazekage hadn't known what it described; they only knew that it was powerful, but useless to anyone who could not read it.

The jutsu it described had apparently been used to great effect in battle: namely, its user would witness conflicts from afar, turn back time by mere months, and, well, change history.

It required massive amounts of chakra, of course, making it all but impossible for anyone _but_ Jinchuuriki to use. That was why the small country it had come from had remained small: their Jinchuuriki had left.

How convenient, then, was it, that both Gaara and Naruto were still demon vessels?

* * *

Gaara, the longest-reigning Kazekage that Suna had had since its conception as a ninja village, container of the demon Shukaku, and the strongest shinobi that Wind country had ever seen was drooling on his desk again. 

No, he wasn't napping: with Shukaku still trapped inside him, he couldn't afford to nap like certain _other_ Kages who shall remain nameless. He was, in fact, communing with his inner demon, which involved a partial transformation.

In the privacy of his office in the Kazekage's tower in Suna, Gaara was free to transform without freaking out or, er - "damaging" one of the younger chuunin assistants.

It wasn't really a discussion. It was, in fact, more of a dictation of "this is what's going to happen, and you shall do as I say" thing on the part of Gaara to Shukaku. He, the Kazekage, needed Shukaku's chakra, and so he would take it. End of story.

After being trapped inside a weak human body for eight decades, Shukaku was understandably still pissed off. His anger was like a persistent, low flame in the back of Gaara's head; that was the way that only immortals can sustain anger for such long periods of time. However, even though Shukaku was relatively stupid, the demon _did_ realize that if his host's life was prolonged, so, too, would he live longer. And the longer he lived, the longer he had to try to find a way to _escape_.

After all, a life trapped inside a weak bag of human flesh was better than no life at all.

* * *

Before he left, Naruto walked the streets of his beloved village to say goodbye. 

There were many things that Naruto would miss about no longer being Hokage.

Naruto would, of course, miss the acknowledgement he received from the townspeople most of all. There was no contesting that fact. He enjoyed speaking with shinobi and civilians alike, and always had a kind word and bits of advice for children. This was especially true when he gave tips to the young pranksters, who couldn't _quite_ believe that their venerable leader had once graffiti-ed the entire Hokage monument in his youth. He would miss the smiles people gave him as they went by, and the respect in the eyes of those he commanded. They would never think to pass the words "demon" or "freak" through their lips. The former would be redundant; everyone _knew_ that he housed the Kyuubi, so why state it? It wasn't as if Jinchuuriki were anything strange, either – didn't the leader of the Sand, their ally, also hold a demon inside him? And wasn't he just as good a leader as their own Hokage?

He would definitely miss that sort of universal understanding.

He would miss his friends, new and old: Neji and Hinata, who ruled the Hyuuga with wrinkled fists; Sakura, who could never quite leave the hospital when there were still patients around to treat; Sasuke, who still trained ANBU operatives despite his growing blindness… And then there were those that had grown to become his friends over the years: those who were half his age, or younger. It would be difficult waiting through the decades it would take for them to even be _born_ – and even then, would they grow to become the same people?

Naruto walked the streets of his beloved Konoha, making sure to stop one last time at his beloved Ichiraku. Ayame's granddaughter, who was also named Ayame, for her grandmother, served him his ramen – miso flavoured. It was delicious, as usual.

After his meal, he walked further, ignoring the twinging of his old knees. He was determined to re-explore the entirety of his village. He spoke to his friends and acquaintances as he normally would. He didn't need any tearful goodbyes, or attempts at stopping him.

Naruto admired his face carved onto the Hokage monument one final time. He would miss that, too. It would be strange to see only three faces up there. They would look lonely, without his and old lady Tsunade's faces to keep them company.

And he would miss the hat. One mustn't forget the hat.

* * *

The ritual itself was almost frightfully simple. It was, in effect, a modified _Shushin no Jutsu_, a technique that all ninja had learned during their academy days. The hardest part about it was the amount of chakra needed, as previously mentioned, and the sheer concentration that one had to have: an intense fixation on a certain period of time to the exclusion of all others. It was simple, but definitely not easy. 

The two of them had decided to meet to use the technique in an unpopulated area about halfway between their two villages, in a mix of forest and desert: grassland. That was fair; they _were_ both getting old, after all, even with the influence of their demons, and it wouldn't be right to make each other walk further than necessary with their old joints.

Naruto, for one, was greatly looking forward to revisiting his youth for that exact reason.

Finally, the two greatest shinobi of the age met in a clearing that lay on the path between their two villages. No words needed to be spoken, as they had planned out their actions in advance. From beneath their large Kage hats, they met each other's eyes. Naruto's eyes were framed by laugh-lines. Gaara's were still surrounded by black even after all these years. If the skin around the other man's eyes had wrinkles from hiding smiles, well, Naruto was diplomatic enough not to mention it.

They each took a deep breath, still looking into each other's eyes, and _began_. Their hands blurred, forming the simple seals that would take them away from this place in time. Holding the final one (ram), they concentrated, focusing on their six-year-old selves. Sand began to pick up around Gaara's form, and Naruto's eyes began to take on a red tinge, their pupils slitting. The air around the blond, too, grew red under the influence of the demonic chakra that he was accessing. Such chakra was freely given at this point by both Kyuubi and Shukaku, as neither of them truly wanted to die such miserable deaths in the old shells of humans. Thus, Naruto and Gaara essentially had a blank cheque to take however much they wanted.

And they would need _a lot_ of chakra.

Looking across to Gaara, ignoring the smell of singed grass from their chakra, Naruto nodded to the other demon vessel. The blond's eyes, along with a quirk of one graying eyebrow, seemed to say: 'see you on the other side.'

In return, Gaara raised one of his own, still non-existent eyebrows, clearly saying: 'Indeed – now be silent and concentrate.'

And they did.

Soon enough, they disappeared in relatively normal-looking puffs of smoke, leaving behind only slightly scorched grass and their absence.

* * *

Their entry into the past was less than graceful, especially considering that they were supposed to be the greatest ninja in their respective villages. 

Naruto had appeared several feet in the air, and, caught off-guard by the smaller size of his body, simply tumbled to the dusty ground without even attempting to land on his feet. He _had_ been expecting to be younger and smaller, but expecting it and being able to react to it are completely different concepts. Luckily, he instinctively remembered how to hit the ground without breaking anything, or landing on his rear, sans dignity. That was one of the first things that one learned in the academy, after all, and even at such a young age Naruto wasn't _entirely_ useless.

Gaara, on the other hand, had landed much more gracefully with his unflappable calmness. Well, more gracefully in comparison. He had fallen into a crouch, but had toppled over because his younger body could not take the weight of his gourd as much as his older one could.

This, more than anything told him what era they had landed in. He had only started to carry around the gourd when he had begun to feel more and more threatened – around the age of six, right before his uncle had betrayed him.

He hadn't worn this sort of cloak in _decades_, he thought, examining the cowl made of pale material and the straps attached to his gourd and outfit. It was strange that Naruto wasn't wearing more orange; Naruto looked odd in a pair of childish shorts and a black t-shirt. The Hokage had always worn more orange than was probably healthy for a ninja. Gaara keenly remembered the eye-straining, brightly coloured jumpsuits that the Kyuubi jinchuuriki had worn when they'd first met. Those had been long since traded in for red and white Hokage robes, however, which looked much more fetching.

"All right, Naruto?" Gaara intoned. He was inwardly surprised at how his voice sounded, but did not show his astonishment. He really was… young.

Getting up cautiously, Naruto stretched his limbs. "Hey, I can _move!_" A grin spread across his face. "This is _awesome_. I'd almost forgotten what it felt like to be young! Man, if I'd have known I would have sent the genins on _so_ many more missions…" The ex-Hokage trailed off wistfully.

"You still can," Gaara pointed out, quietly. "You've just got to become Hokage again."

"Yeah, yeah." Naruto nodded, grinning, straightening his black shirt so that the swirl was centered. "And this time I'm going to beat you to the post, raccoon-eyes."

Gaara snorted, which sounded strange coming from his youthful face. "Yes, of course. This is coming from the number one loser of his academy year?"

"Hey, hey – I'm not even in the academy yet! Besides, _I've_ never actually killed anyone, at this point, so I'll have an easier task."

"So you say," Gaara replied, definitely _not_ smiling. "But that is not what the rest of your village thinks. We're both horrid, bloodthirsty beasts, if you'll remember."

The two demon vessels were silent for a moment, contemplating the enormity of the task ahead of them. It had been many years since anyone had looked upon them with disgust; nobody had dared to speak against them for decades. They had both worked extremely hard to normalize relations between jinchuuriki and the humans who had made them. They would have to start over.

But this time, they had experience on their side.

And, if no-one else, they had the support of each other.

They had become the leaders of their villages once already, after all. They _would_ be able to do it again. The question was just _when_.

Naruto, still grinning, showing off his canines, reached his right hand out towards Gaara. "Race you?"

Without hesitation, the vessel of Shukaku grasped the other boy's hand in agreement. "I will be keeping in touch." Gaara said, levelly.

"Right, then. See you!" And with that, they were gone.

Fear the anger of a patient man, or, rather, the games of immortals.

**Up next: Opening Moves**


	2. Opening Moves

**Chapter Two: ****Opening Moves

* * *

**

Gaara was a creature of the desert, and had nothing to fear from it. Although his gourd of sand, which was equally twice as heavy as he was, burdened his young body, he would weather it. The desert sand showed him hidden wellsprings of water, and shinobi can go without food for days, living off of chakra reserves.

And Gaara had nothing if not chakra reserves.

It wasn't something that he _liked_ to do, but he was quite capable of crossing the desert alone with no supplies. Despite the shifting and fluid nature of the sand dunes, Gaara could never become lost. He had gotten to know these sands very well in his lifetime, and the sands knew him, or, rather, the ancientness inside him.

He was perfectly suited to weather the worst of sandstorms. His own sand would protect him.

The same could not be said of the ANBU that had been sent to retrieve him.

Rescuing them would be his first good deed in this world.

* * *

Naruto, too, was having his own ANBU troubles. Since infancy, the "Kyuubi brat" had been watched by Konoha's finest. It wasn't a desirable assignment, but it was a necessary one. Needless to say, when the demon child suddenly disappeared from under the gaze of some of the most watchful shinobi in the entirety of Fire Country, there would be hell to pay.

Mostly by Naruto.

That would, of course, depend upon which ANBU came to find him. If worse came to worse, well… It could be bad. Many – well, _most_ shinobi still keenly remembered the Kyuubi attack, and the majority still blamed Naruto for it. They could react really badly to having to bring him in. Even if they were ordered to bring him in "alive," they could still claim he was hurt by other means before they arrived, were he to be brought back to Konoha in less than pristine condition. It would all depend on who was sent to fetch him back.

Luckily, Naruto knew how to deal with ANBU. Different ANBU, of course: that went without saying, as hardly anyone lasted over five or ten years in the corps, let alone seven decades. Every Hokage had their little tricks to get the proud shinobi to do their bidding. For Naruto, it was to do what the ANBU expected him to do; or, rather, manipulate them into doing what he wanted by making it seem as if they had thought of it all along.

ANBU hated surprises, after all.

But Naruto hadn't been known as the number-one most surprising ninja for no reason.

Naruto had appeared in this world several days travel outside of Konoha. Normally, that would be hardly any distance at all for him, the Hokage, but his younger body had a shorter leg span, and was, well, kind of pathetic.

At the age of six, Naruto had hardly any notion of what chakra _was_, let alone how to utilize it. As such, the "boy's" first task was to relearn how to focus chakra down into his feet. It wasn't terribly difficult, as he had known how to do so before. It was time-consuming, at first, though, when he accidentally broke the branches that he landed upon, or overshot the branches that he aimed for. Sometimes, less often, he didn't even reach them, if he overcompensated. His younger body didn't know how to rapidly heal itself, either, so he had to be very careful not to fall too far from the trees.

After sixty-eight years of being the most bad-ass ninja around, it was almost disheartening to suddenly be almost incapable of even _tree climbing._

This meant that he'd probably have to relearn how to do some of his most awesome techniques, too.

But he would manage. Naruto always managed, somehow.

When he got within a day's travel of Konohakagure (he had run all night, so as to look suitably lost and tired to those that found him), he began flaring his chakra in imitation of that of a distressed child. After that, it was only a matter of time before the ANBU found him.

When he began to sense their muted chakra signatures approaching, Naruto dropped from the trees to the ground, and slowed to a snail's pace. He was sure to walk right through bushes, thrashing as he was caught among their thorns and branches, and tried to look overall pathetic and lost.

Apparently, it had worked. He felt more than saw or heard the shinobi alight on a branch above his head. He pretended not to notice, continuing to try to plough through the woods, "accidentally" tripping over a tree branch and stumbling. Before he could hit the ground, he was caught by a white-armored arm. Ah, good. It was one of the more trustworthy ANBU. Most would have simply let the Kyuubi brat fall, or would have brutally "helped" him to the ground.

Naruto jerked and turned to look towards the masked face, feigning fear and confusion. "Who- who're you?" He gasped, working up some tears into his bright blue eyes.

The ANBU was silent, not revealing his identity to the child, just as a good soldier should. He, as Hokage, approved.

"I am Wolf." The man said after a suitably dramatic pause. "We have been looking for you, Uzumaki Naruto." 'We' would probably be referring to the other chakra signature he wasn't supposed to be able to sense, still in the tree above him.

So it was Kakashi, then. Some real tears leaked out, then. His old sensei had died in the thirty-fifth year of his rule over Konoha, on a simple B-class mission turned S-class by a band of rogue missing-nin.

It was good to see him once again.

Feigning hysteria, Naruto tried to scramble away. "Why're you looking for me?"

Obviously, such a young boy as Naruto was supposed to be wouldn't be able to wrench out of an ANBU's grip so easily. Kakashi's hand remained clamped onto the boy's shoulder. "You have been missing for nearly five days, Uzumaki Naruto. The Hokage sent us to find you," the copy-nin said in the flat tone of voice unique to ANBU operatives and Gaara.

"O- old-man Hokage sent you?" Naruto questioned, timorously. So he had been missing five days. Interesting, considering that he had only been in this world for three. He wondered how that had worked – he supposed that his younger self would have had to arrive in that clearing _somehow_ so that he could replace him.

"You will come with me back to Konoha." That wasn't a request; that was a statement of fact. Naruto didn't argue. "Have you eaten?"

Naruto wordlessly shook his head. That was a lie, but it would be expected that he didn't know how to feed himself out here. He_ was_ hungry, but not starving as he should be after five days without food. He had eaten a little bit in the past two days. The forest was full of edible plants, after all. But his younger self wouldn't have known that, having lived in the village for all of his short life. No-one had taught him what could be eaten in the wild and what couldn't be until his sojourn with Jiraiya.

He _had_ been living off of his chakra this past day, which would also give him a suitably gaunt and hungry look: just what the ANBU were expecting.

A ration bar was shoved into his hands. "Eat, and then we shall go." The ANBU intoned. Naruto knew that they specially practiced those tones of voice to achieve particular effects: namely, intimidation. Naruto wasn't fooled, but pretended to be suitably cowed. He scarfed down the tasteless bar of granola and vitamins – he really was hungry – and once more looked to the masked man.

Even through the mask, Naruto could tell that the man was concerned at how quickly he had eaten that food. That itself was significant, because Kakashi rarely got concerned over anything (according to Maito Gai, his rival was too "hip" and "cool" to show concern over anybody).

Excellent. He concentrated on looking tired and hungry. He was already getting somewhere.

* * *

Gaara hadn't spoken to the ANBU when he had come across the them, huddled in the slight protection of a sand dune, feebly trying to shield themselves from sandy death in a distinctly un-ANBU fashion. Gaara figured that he looked rather dramatic, framed by walls of sand and sudden silence from the storm's wails. The ANBU might have even looked relieved behind their masks before they realized just who had saved them. The redheaded child directed the sand around them with his hands, knowing that hand-gestures made it easier to concentrate and, well, looked more impressive.

Gaara was concentrating on holding the sandstorm at bay so the ANBU he had encountered wouldn't have the flesh stripped from their bones. This act was actually rather difficult, because he had to move the sand in a way contrary to the direction that they wanted to go, which was along with the wind. Most of the time when he moved sand, he used chakra to feed it along natural currents either in the ground or in the air… although, he _could_ force it in another direction, with difficulty, like he was now.

His current actions created a sort of "eye" in the storm in which air was totally still. Surrounding them on all sides were massive walls of immobile sand.

"Any port in a storm," as they say. As such, the ANBU were quite willing to put aside any harsh feelings they had for the faulty weapon of Suna if it meant that they would be able to get out of this sandstorm alive.

As Gaara directed the sand, he gestured for the trio of sand shinobi to move forward, in a direction that he knew that Sunakagure lay. Perhaps it was his inherent leadership qualities, honed through seven decades of undisputed political control, or perhaps it was that Gaara really _was_ scary enough to frighten hardened ANBU into obeying, but they followed his silent orders without question.

They ran forward, the four of them, and the bubble of sand-less air followed them.

Gaara had abandoned his heavy gourd for convenience's sake. It wasn't as if he didn't have access to ample enough sand to be able to defend himself out here.

Unlike Naruto, who had made a sort of contract with his inner demon, Gaara had never truly defeated Shukaku, or really made a proper agreement with him. They hadn't even come to a truce; it was more of a stalemate than a détente, truth to be told. The most they had agreed upon was a mutual "I'll prevent your death if you prevent mine." Gaara would indeed kill people who were threatening him or his village, but that wasn't enough to satisfy the bloodlust of the Ichibi. Both of them had become well aware that Gaara as sure as hell wouldn't fall asleep and let Shukaku out, and with his entire will focused to such a task, there wasn't much the one-tail could do to resist. As such, it was less of a formal cease-fire and more of a "watch and wait for weaknesses in the enemy to appear."

Apparently, Shukaku had spotted a weakness.

The walls of Sunakagure had just come into dim view through the swirling sand when Shukaku made his move. The one-tailed beast suddenly and without warning roared directly into Gaara's brain. Eyes widening in shock, the boy instinctively clamped his hands over his ears. He then squeezed his eyes shut in a vain attempt to shut out the horrendous sound. This did no good, because the demon's attack upon its host was purely mental. Because Shukaku did not require air, he therefore didn't have to pause to breathe, extending the incredibly loud bestial cry for a surprisingly long time in Gaara's mind.

The ANBU, however, knew none of this. They just knew that all of a sudden, their protection against the raging sandstorm was gone. Purely for selfish reasons (they hadn't gone into that storm to fetch back the demon child only to come back empty handed _now)_, they grabbed the demon brat under the arms and dragged him into the city. It wasn't a terribly difficult task, as Gaara really was a skinny little kid and wasn't all that heavy.

He was also acting very strange. Well, strange for a normal person. Perhaps clutching at one's head and screaming was normal for a demon-possessed child.

Luckily for these ANBU, someone came right away to relieve them of their burden: Yashamaru. "You there! You have Gaara?" The blond man called out, above the sound of the wind, from a nearby doorway. "Is he alive?"

"Yes!" One of them replied. Well, the brat was screaming pretty loudly. That had to mean that he was breathing, right?

"This way!" They were lead into the nearby sentry outpost for the wall. It was, mercifully, closed to the elements. The sound of the sandstorm raging about them continued, but they were no longer in danger of being torn apart.

"Here, give him to me!" _That_ was something that the shinobi were very eager to do. But just as they were handing him over to Yashamaru, Gaara's eyes snapped open and sand began to swirl angrily about his feet. Yashamaru instinctively took a step back.

The boy's eyes were, well, black pits – for lack of a better term. They weren't human. Mercifully, they closed after only moments, and Gaara clutched at his head. "Let me go-" he grated out, the last word cut off as he growled. He actually _growled_. The ANBU were all too happy to drop him. He was dumped unceremoniously upon the floor, where he lay, curled into a ball, still clutching his head.

The ANBU would have likely fled, orders to complete the mission be damned, if the sandstorm hadn't still been raging around them.

The four ninja watched, silent, as the demon brat battled with… something, probably bloodlust, on the floor in front of them. Occasionally, the redhead would mutter something that sounded like "shutupshutupshutup!" before falling silent once more.

An eternity later, the demon brat's form finally relaxed, his hands falling to his sides, breathing in sharp gasps indicating exhaustion. "I am… all right." Gaara managed, sitting up. He had slapped up the mental equivalent of sandbags, dams, and stone walls against Shukaku - all guarded by metaphorical mental ANBU. That would be the _last_ time he would let himself be distracted from keeping the demon at bay for a long, long while.

"What… happened?" Yashamaru finally asked, as if afraid to know the answer.

"Shukaku wanted you dead. I didn't." He met his uncle's eyes. There was definite fear there, and perhaps a little bit of disgust now that Gaara knew what he was looking for. Gaara's already bad mood plummeted, but he tried not to show it. He didn't want to have his uncle's death on his hands again, even if the man hated Gaara's guts for causing mother's death.

"Hey, but aren't Shukaku and you- er - the same –ah…" The ANBU had begun to wonder something aloud, and was silenced by a glare from Gaara.

"I am a vessel of a demon, not the demon itself." He deliberately injected bitterness into his tone, and a bit of hurt, calculatingly 'glancing' at Uncle Yashamaru. "Do you blame the bars of the jail for the criminal's crimes?" Gaara knew he was introducing a radical concept. He didn't expect them to get it right away. Perhaps with enough repetition, the idea would spread. He hoped so. "You may not really love me, uncle-" Gaara whispered just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the storm, avoiding Yashamaru's gaze and ignoring the gasp and sudden scent of fear from the blond man, "But you are a citizen of my village and I don't want you to die."

**Up next: Deceiving Your Opponent**


	3. Deceiving Your Opponent

**Chapter Three: ****Deceiving Your Opponent**

One does not remain the uncontested strongest shinobi of an entire village for as long as Naruto had been without coming up with a few tricks to keep it that way. Naruto, for one, used Kage Bunshin to great effect while training. He had been doing so ever since the mission way back when he was fifteen and had to rescue Gaara (and Shukaku) from the clutches of the Akatsuki. That mission had been only barely successful; the Kazekage would have _died_ had they hadn't arrived before the missing-nin had begun extracting the Ichibi.

From then on, Naruto had refused to accept any possible weaknesses on his part that could prevent him in any way from protecting his precious people. And so, Kage Bunshin had become a staple of his training regime. Things went by so much more quickly when there were dozens or even hundreds of you applied to the task.

Naruto had also been known as one of the _worst_ liars in the entire history of Konoha in his youth. Eventually, he became known as one of the best ones, but many didn't realize that he had made such a transition for many years. How could such a stupid, idiotic, loud, _pathetic_ excuse for a ninja lie with any sort of effectiveness? After a while, Naruto began using this perception that most people had of him to his own advantage. Just because people thought that he was horrendously incapable of deception didn't mean that he was always truthful.

_This _Konoha still thought he wore his heart on his sleeve.

And now, he would soon be lying his little heart out to the Hokage, of all people.

It would be a wonderful challenge.

* * *

A silent Yashamaru escorted Gaara to the Kazekage's office after the storm died down. He didn't even attempt to hold the boy's hand, as he would have the week before. Gaara was pretty sure he wouldn't take it if it were offered to him, though. He still remembered the man's final words keenly: "Please die." After that incident, he was fairly sure that he hadn't been entirely sane for several years – not until Naruto had knocked some sense and some empathy into him after the failed joint attack of Suna and Sound during his first chuunin exam. 

Gaara would have to "convert" his uncle before he did much else. If he could get his uncle to see reason, to see him in a different light, then perhaps there would be hope for the rest of the villagers this time around.

Gaara also remembered his father fairly well. When he was (originally) this age, Gaara had seen the man as tall, intimidating, and a source of immense hatred and disappointment – especially after the man had begun to send assassins after him. The man had never acknowledged him as a son; in fact, he hardly ever even acknowledged Gaara at all, let alone acted as a father to him. Gaara had looked upon the man with fear.

But now? He felt next to nothing. There was no lost love between the two. He didn't regret the man's death at all, except for the tactical fact that his death had unfortunately lead way for Orochimaru's infiltration of Sand.

This time, though, there was something different: Gaara had the advantage of knowledge over the man. He understood the politics of Suna much better now – perhaps even better than the current Kazekage did - and he also knew, generally, how the future would play out.

Gaara was also now much better able to "take care" of those sent to kill him. They would pose no threat to him. Gaara had every intention of wresting the Kazekage position from his father as soon as it was feasible… even if he had to kill the man himself.

Gaara didn't kid himself: he knew that his father just wasn't the best man for the job. The current Kazekage was almost the _worst_ man for the job. He was impatient, power-hungry and devoid of even much human empathy. Sure, Gaara had been the same way, too, at one time… but the point was that that was no longer so. Gaara had eventually learned to actually _care_ about the village of Sunakagure and its citizens, but his father never had. And that was one of the great differences between the two.

Gaara would have to change that.

The redhead was calm as he was lead up the stairs of the Kazekage tower. Calm and serene, for all that he was hiding a raging monster inside him. He had to seem in control, but not quite harmless, if he were to get his way.

Normally, it was the job of the guards outside of the Kazekage's office to preemptively stop anyone dangerous from entering and possibly harming their leader. The only exception to this rule, of course, was Gaara. The boy _was_ incredibly deadly, but there wasn't anything that they could do about that. Yashamaru and his charge therefore weren't stopped and made to wait at the entrance of the office; they just went right on through to see the Kazekage.

The first thing that Gaara noticed upon entering _his_ office (and it would be his, very soon) was the killing intent and disgust radiating from the soon-to-be _former_ Kazekage.

Gaara, quite simply, wasn't going to stand for that, and countered with his own killing intent. He didn't even change his facial expression while doing so… not that his face usually reflected any sort of emotion in the first place. It wasn't enough to smother the other's oppressive negative spirit, but it was enough so that Gaara felt nothing, not even the vaguest malaise, coming from the Kazekage. That would only help him remain calm. It would do him no good if he killed the current Kazekage because he got annoyed. Such an assassination would do him no favours at the moment. Much to his dismay, Gaara understood that it was necessary to leave his father in the Kazekage's seat… for now. Or, rather, until he could find a more valid candidate and position him or her to take the seat until he was ready to take control himself. Nearly _anybody_ would be better than his father.

What kind of leader sacrifices his citizen's lives to create the ultimate weapon but then disrespects their deaths by trying to kill the very weapon that they created?

The answer to that question was "a bad one". The Kazekage hadn't even _tried_ to really train Gaara into becoming a weapon before deciding that he was useless and ordering his destruction. He _could_ have given his youngest son a chance to prove his worth.

"Just _where_ have you been?" The Kazekage hissed without preamble. He had obviously been worried, but not out of personal concern for his youngest son. It was more because it would be… inconvenient to have a weapon fall into the hands of shinobi from another village, even if it was directly useless to him.

Gaara spoke, apparently completely disregarding the killing intent permeating the room, making his two elder relatives shift uneasily. "Father," (He had chosen such a form of address for deliberate effect), "I was communing with the desert." It was best to sound honest, but cryptic.

Gaara could tell by the man's narrowing, glaring gaze that he wanted him to explain just what the hell he meant by that, but refrained from questioning him, with effort.

In the case of demon vessels, it was often best just not to ask.

"You shall not leave the walls of the village unescorted again." The Kazekage ordered without preamble. Gaara refrained from asking just how the man would stop him should he choose to go against that order. "You shall stay and be watched by trustworthy shinobi. It would not do to have you stolen by some enterprising Cloud nin."

This would likely be a good time to bring up his thought. "Father, I would be quite content to remain inside the village if I could stay with my siblings. They and their guards could watch me without splitting Suna's forces."

"Absolutely not," The Kazekage refused immediately, seemingly out of reflex. "You shall remain in your apartment with Yashamaru until further notice."

Gaara's eyes narrowed minutely in a calculated show of annoyance. "And if that apartment were to be destroyed by the sandstorm?" The wind howled outside, grinding sand against the stone wall of the tower with a noticeable scraping noise.

Gaara had felt the sandy wind pick up outside throughout the duration of their conversation. By bringing it to the man's attention now, it both served as punctuation to his statement. It also gave the implication that he could cause sandstorms. This idea had already been planted in the Kazekage's mind with his earlier comment about "communing" with the desert: wasn't it convenient that went Gaara "communed" out there, a sandstorm, the strength of which was rarely seen, was formed?

It was, of course, a complete coincidence that the wind was picking up just then. He could create sand-dunes and even whole deserts where there had been nothing but forest before, but that had taken an immense amount of both will and chakra. Gaara was powerful, but even he couldn't alter weather patterns.

The current Kazekage, however, wasn't aware of that fact. He likely had very little idea of the extent of the vessel of Shukaku's powers at all.

Gaara wasn't above using that ignorance for his own benefit. With a few monotonous sentences, he had implied that he could create sandstorms fierce enough to destroy whole villages at will. The threat was there, hanging in the silence between them.

In the end, Gaara was allowed to move in with Temari and Kankurou that very day. Even his father could understand that perhaps sacrificing two lives, even if they were his own children, to satisfy a demon were nothing in comparison to the possibility of having the entire village (and himself along with the aforementioned children) obliterated by the raging desert.

* * *

"Now, then, Naruto." The old Hokage began sternly from behind his desk in his office in the Hokage tower, where Naruto had been brought upon his return to Konoha. The man was badly hiding his relief that Naruto had been found, safe. "Just what were you doing out in the forest for five days?" 

To the uninitiated observer, the Sandaime appeared for all the world that he was simply a friendly old schoolmaster who had brought a young truant student before his desk for a little discussion about his behaviour in class.

However, Naruto wasn't a student, he was a demon-child, and Sarutobi was the strongest ninja in the village, who was theoretically able to snap Naruto like a twig.

Naruto shuffled his feet, eying the floor as would be expected of the child he was supposed to be. "I was practicing." He 'admitted.'

"Practicing…?" The third Hokage trailed off, inviting the boy to finish the sentence.

He met the old man's eyes. "I want to become a ninja." The six-year-old Naruto said firmly: uncharacteristically serious. He already was one, mentally, but his body left something to be desired at the moment.

"You were practicing… ninja arts?" The Hokage questioned for clarification.

"Yes. I – um – stole that giant scroll of yours. Sorry." He feigned contrition, looking back down at his feet. This could actually work!

The Hokage stiffened. He then turned to one of the ninja flanking his desk and made a hand gesture. That ANBU disappeared in a puff of smoke, presumably to run off and check to see if the scroll was indeed missing.

It actually _was_ gone, but no-one had realized that yet. Naruto had made a shadow clone on the sly when he had entered Konoha, unobserved by the ANBU accompanying him. The clone hadn't been noticed not only because Naruto had refined his stealth in his later years, but also because his new guards simply hadn't been expecting a six-year-old to be doing such a high-level technique. Therefore, they hadn't been watching for any sort of "funny business," as they would have if their "captive" had been, well, anyone other than who he appeared to be. Naruto would have to break them of the habit of underestimating the people around them, somehow. No-one should be above suspicion, especially not to an ANBU, and especially not to Kakashi. Overconfidence can only lead to incompetence. Naruto had learned that lesson the hard way.

Naruto had sent the bunshin off to go steal that scroll almost as soon as he had entered the village gates. When _he_ had been wearing the oversized Hokage hat, he had beefed up security around the forbidden documents. They really were ridiculously easy to steal. His bunshin was currently hiding out with it in the woods near the training grounds.

"Naruto…" The Sandaime began, reproachfully, as if speaking to a young child (like Naruto appeared to be). "Stealing is wrong."

The boy nodded earnestly. "I know. But I just _had_ to learn some awesome jutsus."

"Naruto, can you even read?"

Shoot. _Could_ he read at this age? Um – "Yes, of course, old man!" He burst out confidently, grinning. "I'm the number one surprising ninja, and I'll be Hokage one day! I've definitely learned how to read!" He gave the man a thumbs-up.

This act actually seemed to work. The Hokage looked taken aback, but he looked like he believed Naruto – at least about being able to read. Good.

Momentarily, the nameless ANBU with the crow mask re-appeared in the office in a burst of smoke from his teleportation jutsu. "Hokage-sama, it is as the boy said: the scroll is missing."

With that simple statement, Naruto had the Hokage's full and undivided attention. The boy could tell that the Sandaime hadn't really thought that he had been telling the truth before when he had said that he had stolen _that_ scroll. _Now_ he would, at least.

"Naruto…" Sarutobi began slowly, "Where is the scroll?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, old man!" Naruto said hurriedly. "It's safe, don't worry!"

"And how do you know that, Naruto? You're here, not with the scroll."

"Er, yeah, about that…" Naruto trailed off, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "I sorta am. I have a kago- kake- um- _kage__ bunshin_," he finally managed the term, deliberately mangling his pronunciation of his 'new' word, "with the scroll."

"Kage bunshin." The Hokage repeated, stunned.

"Yep."

"_Kage bunshin_, you said." The old man repeated, drawing out the name clearly, just to be sure.

"Uh-huh. The solid kind of clone, you know? Made from shadows or something?"

"Yes, Naruto, I know what a shadow clone is. But-" Sarutobi trailed off with a helpless look. "Naruto, do you even know what chakra _is?_"

"Yep. Er – sorta. It's like magic, isn't it?" The boy affirmed, innocently.

"Not really, Naruto."

"But I can make doubles of myself with it! Isn't that magic? See, look!" With a look of concentration on his young face, he sloppily formed the familiar seals and called out: "Kage bunshin no jutsu!"

To the Sandaime's eternal amazement, he found a six-year-old perform a forbidden technique right before his eyes. Successfully, at that.

Two fully-formed, perfect doubles of Naruto appeared in a burst of white smoke. The Hokage tried not to stare.

"See, I told you I could do it, old man!" The three Narutos said at once, giving identical grins.

The Hokage processed what his eyes were seeing. Then, with all seriousness, he raised his wrinkled hands and formed a seal. "Kai."

Absolutely nothing happened. No illusion was cancelled. The three Narutos were still standing in front of him.

Apparently, Naruto thought to himself, he was pushing the limits of believability.

"Naruto… how…?"

"Heh heh." The three of him all simultaneously rubbed the backs of their heads. "That's why I was in the forest for so long, you know? 'Cause I couldn't just come back with nothing, right?"

It took the Hokage a moment to formulate an answer. "…So it would seem."

Naruto got off lightly, in the end. He was given a stern talking-to by the Hokage, and told firmly that he was to on no accounts go gallivanting off into the woods alone for days on end again. He would be watched by ANBU more so than he was already (not that he was supposed to know that in the first place), and he had to report to the Hokage once a day until the Sandaime was satisfied that he had learned his lesson. Naruto figured that if he was particularly annoying, he could get around that part of the punishment within a few weeks.

The stolen scroll was to be returned immediately, but Naruto wasn't all that bothered when he had to give it up. It had served his purpose – now the Hokage would focus on _that_ and not the possibility of Naruto having liaisons with a shinobi from a hidden village that was technically hostile to his own.

_And_ the ANBU were aware of the fact that he could produce shadow clones. That gave him free reign to use it in training, thus, eluding suspicion. If he slipped up and used a technique that was too advanced, he could always claim that one of his bunshins had read about it. He would still have to be careful, of course, in his use of them, but… He was just happy he could produce clones of himself. It was something _familiar_.

This particular jutsu had remained his trademark throughout the long decades of his reign as Hokage. He had literally been able to summon armies of himself at his disposal, which had been very helpful when his village became strapped for ninja to do missions. One quick henge and _poof:_ he had more "ninja" to send on simple D and C class missions. Any missions ranked higher than that, and he risked them dissipating at inopportune times, to the detriment of their employers, so he normally refrained from sending clones on higher class missions.

Soon, they would be useful in another fashion; instead of paperwork, he could set them to doing his homework. That would free more time to accomplish his self-imposed mission: become Hokage as quickly as possible.

For now, though, there was no rush. The Sandaime was healthy, and a good leader. Naruto didn't want him dead. Besides, if Sarutobi were to die right now, the last person the council would consider to succeed him would be a six-year-old demon child, even if he _was_ the Yondaime's legacy – or perhaps _because_ he was the Yondaime's legacy, considering what that entailed.

Naruto therefore had several years to simply work on winning over the hearts of villagers who despised him.

* * *

**Next chapter: Intermission**


	4. Intermission

**Chapter Four: Intermission**

* * *

Author's Note: (Wow, would you believe that this is my first author's note of the entire fic?) 

I just wanted to address a few things that I've been getting in reviews, namely: who's getting paired with who? Now, I like romance as much as any young woman. I actually really like slash, and the NarutoXGaara pairing in particular (that's your cue to recommend some good fanfics with that pairing, by the way ;) ). However, as I've written to a few of you before, I'm actually planning on making this fic gen, overall. Naruto and Gaara have other things on their minds, after all. ;) Romance doesn't really fit in well with the plotline, unfortunately. :(

I also thought that I would like to mention some of my motivations for writing this fic. I love the time-skip genre of fanfiction, but I have noticed some rather strange clichés. In writing this fic, I'm writing both what I think would be awesome and what I think actually makes sense. I do so love anti-clichés. :3 I hope that I'm succeeding in developing an original plot and accurate characterizations! Please tell me if I'm erring in any way (even if it's a typo). I really do need constructive criticism.

But in any case, please enjoy the chapter:D Oh, and review. Some of you may have noticed, but if your review is longer than a sentence or two, I reply and may or may not give hints for what's going to happen next. :) I also tend to write faster if encouraged by reviews. (Just a subtle hint. :3 )

(**If you skipped these paragraphs, here is a brief summary: THIS FIC SHALL BE GEN. NO PAIRINGS (sadly). AT ALL. WHATSOEVER. REVIEW AND THOU SHALT BE REWARDED.)

* * *

**

Naruto found it strange… adjusting. Less than a week previously, by his reckoning, he had been all but worshipped by the populace of a Konoha that he loved and protected. He had been their defender, their leader, their friend…

Things weren't going particularly well for Naruto.

He had thought that he had grown thick-skinned enough to deflect verbal barbs and glares from the villagers, but apparently he had become rusty over the decades. He felt each hissed insult as a sharp pain in his chest, like he was going to have a heart attack, but on a more psychological level. Children didn't have heart attacks, after all... fortunately or unfortunately for him.

He would cope. The past and future Hokage of Konoha wouldn't be taken down by mere _words_.

Or thrown rocks.

Or rotten vegetables.

Well… he would cope, regardless.

That wasn't the only thing that was… making him feel grumpy. There was also the fact that it had taken him several hours to remember where his run-down little apartment was. The place had been demolished – as in, turned to rubble by a wayward explosive note - during the war with Sound before he had turned twenty, and he hadn't lived in it for over half a century, after all. He could hardly remember what it looked like. Luckily, he had found a small orange-painted key in his pants' pocket. Someone (probably the Sandaime, because he was the only one who cared enough about him to do it) had had the apartment number engraved upon the key when it was made. Then, it had been only a matter of time: trying the key in every apartment with that room number that looked even vaguely familiar. A few hours, some trespassing, and a few pissed off villagers later, he had finally stumbled into his scruffy little apartment.

It was a good thing that he was such a small child, because this place was just _tiny_. It didn't help that the floor was scattered liberally with, to put it simply, _junk: _a ratty old sofa, empty ramen containers, a half-dead potted plant, several cheap scrolls, and the few items of clothing he could afford (he had no closet to hang them in, you see, so they were all on the floor). Naruto stood at the door, looking out upon the mess, trying to ignore what his eyes (and nose) were telling him. He sighed. Something would have to be done about this.

And the smell.

Luckily, that's what Kage Bunshin were for. Unlike some stuck up ninja he had come to know over the years, Naruto had no compunctions about using a jounin-level technique to do laundry. What _else_ would you use it for?

Many hands make light work, after all. He had to help himself, because no-one else would.

_Meh_, the blond thought dismissively. What didn't kill you made you stronger, he had always heard. He had found this to be generally true so far.

* * *

It was strange, Gaara mused, how even a few, relatively insignificant changes in events could drastically alter his life. 

By this time, he would have been, to say the least, borderline homicidally insane, nihilistic, and incredibly depressed. The only thing that had helped at that point had been, well, indiscriminately killing people.

In his past, on this day, he had killed his uncle after a botched assassination attempt.

Instead of lying in a sandy pool of blood somewhere on a lonely rooftop, or in some scorched and bloody crater, his Uncle Yashamaru was making his siblings and him supper in the less-than-spacious kitchen they were now to share. The food was steaming, and from the smell Gaara could tell that he was cooking chicken and rice.

Gaara was well aware that the man still harbored a lot of negative feelings for him, but Gaara did his best to dissuade his uncle of them in the only ways he really knew how to.

He stopped killing people, for one. That helped.

Unfortunately for him, people had long memories, especially when it concerned close relatives who had been killed. He hadn't "murdered" them, per se. A monster didn't murder someone (that would imply humanity on his part, as only humans can murder other humans). People were "killed" by Gaara, like how people were tragically "killed" by natural disasters... only this "disaster" had a sense of malice. Many still held the deaths he had caused against him.

However, there wasn't much Gaara could do about that… except, perhaps, pull an Uchiha Itachi and just slaughter the whole family of people who objected to him.

…It was just a thought. He wouldn't actually go through with it. Again, it was just a thought. It appealed to Shukaku, not to him. He would resist. He was good at resisting.

Besides, he was going to become Kazekage. He couldn't go around giving into his demon and willy-nilly killing people anymore, unless, of course, they wore the forehead protectors of an enemy village. Then he had free range to kill however many of them he liked, provided that they weren't there for peaceful, diplomatic reasons.

Gaara had also done his best to, well, become _sociable_. Or, at least, sociable in comparison to how he had been before he had gained memories of the future. Even after he had become Kazekage the first time around, he had never been the friendliest of people, but he had long since learned the value of friendships.

When he had been young, before Yashamaru's death, he had coveted friends, purely for the sake of having something called a "friend", mostly because it was something normal that he didn't have. He hadn't really understood the value of people – both their friendships and their lives – until after he had met Naruto. Before he had encountered his peer, he had seen the world in three categories: himself, that _thing_ inside him that spoke with mother's voice, and Everybody Else. Everybody Else had contained a short range of ranks: those to watch (which consisted of the Kazekage and his siblings, and later on his jounin sensei Baki) and those to ignore or kill, sometimes both, as the situation demanded it.

That was it; that had been Gaara's vision of the world.

Things had changed.

He still classed people in his mind, but under different categories: those to protect (his "precious people," consisting of his siblings, Naruto, and a select few trusted ninja of Suna), those to watch over (the members of his village, sometimes extending to certain members of Naruto's village), and those to ignore or kill (a smaller group than before).

He was slowly changing, and he found that he didn't mind doing so. The demon inside him still raged, but even though Gaara could hear the commands, he could ignore them quite easily. Gaara was firmly in control.

Gaara watched the world through black-rimmed eyes.

* * *

Clearing out his apartment had been a learning experience for Naruto. His youth had been reduced to dim memories of hunger, yelling villagers, particularly cool pranks, the punishments for enacting them, the difficulties of Academy classes, the shame of failing at what seemed to come so easily to others, and, later on, Iruka-sensei's kindness. 

But as he sorted through the junk scattered liberally around his apartment, he found himself discovering details of his own long-lost past.

When he unearthed his goggles, he had turned them over and over in his hands, examining them from every angle with delight. How had he forgotten _these_? They had been a present from Old-man Hokage, for his fifth birthday. They had been one of his most prized possessions until Iruka-sensei had bestowed upon Naruto his own forehead-protector.

Naruto wasn't sure _what _to think of his walrus nightcap. It was undignified for a future Hokage, but then again, he himself wasn't exactly a dignified person. He decided that it would be deemed "cute" by anybody who saw it, and put it aside to be worn that evening.

He had also rediscovered his beloved Gama-chan change purse. The thing had been consumed by the Kyuubi's chakra during a training session with Jiraiya when he had been seventeen. He had found this one originally in a discount bin at the green-grocers when he'd been... wow, he couldn't even remember that far back. Needless to say, he'd had Gama-chan since he was very young. He cuddled its greenness to his face, squishing it against his whiskered cheek and giggling like the child he appeared to be. "I won't lose you so quickly this time," he told it. The frog purse watched him with its button eyes. Naruto grinned again.

* * *

Gaara was silent at supper. This was not something terribly unusual. There had been some weeks that had gone by in his future that had never been in which he had actually managed to get by without speaking a single word to anyone. 

Of course, back then, he had been a politician, one that people insisted on speaking with all hours of the day (and, sometimes, night, especially once it had become commonly known that he didn't actually sleep), so it had been more of a challenge than presently, when he was ignored more often than not.

The others at the table also held their tongues in a more forced, awkward manner. What did you say to something that you were afraid would snap and kill you at any moment?

Well, perhaps he was being unfair upon his erstwhile un-introduced siblings, Kankuro and Temari, whom he sat beside at the dinner table. They seemed to be acting awkward because he was so quiet and they didn't know him, not out of any particular hate they may have had for him, personally, or his demon. There was a definite note of nervousness in Yashamaru's posture and voice, though, even as he smiled (it didn't reach his eyes) and served up the dinner that he had made. His uncle had flinched when Gaara had raised his hand in the innocuous act of picking up his chopsticks. Gaara moved slowly, as one would move around a wounded animal. He knew that he was seen as a predator. He would act the part of the lamb. He tried to exude harmlessness.

It was incredibly difficult. He had massive amounts of oppressive chakra, due to his inner tenant, and it was tiring to reign in the demonic aura. He hadn't had to repress it when he had been Kazekage. Intimidation had kind of been the point.

He thought of what Naruto did to put others at ease. The blond had at least four times the amount of chakra that he had, and even surrounded by malevolent energy the Hokage made people relaxed around him. Gaara pictured Naruto in his mind; the Naruto of old, Naruto in his prime. He was smiling in that infuriatingly cheerful way of his, eyes drawn into happy slits, the sun shining off of his golden hair... Gaara knew that if he grinned like that… well, far from making his family members comfortable, it would likely be interpreted as a threat. The only time he had ever really smiled more than a slight upturn of the lips had been when he was being controlled by Shukaku, so perhaps the threatening association wasn't unwarranted.

And so, instead, he awkwardly cleared his throat and stated in his usual, flat tone: "This food is delicious." There. He had said something. It had even been a compliment.

Yashamaru had frozen at these words, chopsticks stopped mid-way between his plate and his open mouth. Gaara could feel the man's stress levels spike even at his simple sentence. What did the man think he was going to say? '_Delicious; it reminds me of the taste of human flesh?_' Gaara suppressed his initial offended reaction and merely looked back down at his plate, silent once more.

His siblings, however, apparently hadn't developed their once infamous sense of self-preservation yet.

"Yeah, Uncle Yashamaru's a really good cook, isn't he?" Kankuro, age nine or thereabouts, said in reply around a mouth full of chicken and rice. Gaara nodded minutely in response.

Gaara… wasn't _un_used to seeing his older brother without his habitual war paint on his face. Kankuro had often walked around, "bare faced," in their shared mansion. His older brother only decided against wearing his makeup when he was at his most comfortable. Gaara's siblings had been his most constant companions and bodyguards (not that he really needed the latter, with his sand) throughout his years as Kazekage. However, whenever things got tense, the first indication that Gaara would normally have would be the emergence of that purple makeup. It was a literal mask, a defense against outside troubles.

And things were definitely… tense around this table. Gaara assumed that his brother hadn't yet taken up the mantle of puppeteer or the face paint that went along with it just yet. He supposed that was understandable. They were both young, still.

Little known fact: the famous techniques of the other two sand siblings, Temari and Kankuro, were initially developed so that they could get around Gaara's sand attacks. This had been done mostly out of self-defense. With her fan, Temari could delay the approach of, say, a wall of sand just long enough so that she could escape. Kankuro, too, had become exceedingly good at replacing himself with his beloved puppets just in case his little brother had had enough and decided to crush him with sand; he needed an escape route.

Gaara wondered if they would develop the same techniques this time around. Perhaps he could push them in that direction by testing them with his sand. Or he could let them be, and see what they developed independently of his influence. It would be… interesting, he decided, to see how much just he himself could change things.

He had no doubt that Naruto was doing the same.

* * *

Naruto spent the evening much more alone than Gaara did. Despite the crows of clones, he had technically spent the day cleaning alone; Kage bunshin didn't generally count as people. When they talked, or argued, it was essentially like conducting an inner conversation out loud. Granted, it was useful for brainstorming purposes and for those times that he _really _didn't want to go to a meeting himself (it had actually taken his assistants nearly a_ decade_ to figure out that he was sending bunshin in his place), but… He himself wasn't exactly stimulating conversation. 

He ate dinner alone.

If nothing else, Naruto could think of at least one positive thing about this experience: he had rediscovered the joys of instant ramen. Ever since he had become Hokage, gone had been the days in which he had had to prepare his own meals. No cook worth his salt would prepare _instant ramen_ for the Rokudaime Hokage – even if said Hokage requested it – and so it had fallen out of Naruto's diet.

It was good to have ramen back. It had a nutritional value of almost zero, but an awesomeness value of five billion, by his reckoning. No joke.

Of course, such thoughts inevitably lead him to wondering how the Ichiraku ramen stand was doing. The old man who had run it back when Naruto had been young had died when Naruto had reached the age of forty, and even though the man's daughter had taken over running the stand and had ample experience, there had been just a little bit… missing from the flavor. Perhaps it was 'love'. Or MSG. Whichever. There was _something_ missing, anyway.

At that moment, he decided: he would start the next day with breakfast at his favourite restaurant. He had become their most respected patron over the decades that he had been going there; he would start early this time… even if the fact that he ate there initially drove away some of their business.

And so Naruto happily slurped up his ramen – the only food that was in his apartment's tiny kitchen apart from half a carton of spoiled milk and a wilted piece of lettuce. Tomorrow would be a fresh start.

* * *

Gaara excused himself from the dinner table before he had finished eating even half of the food on his plate. His uncle didn't stop him. Kankuro once again didn't know when to keep his tongue behind his teeth: "Hey, where're you going, Gaara?" 

The redhead hesitated, wondering if he should bother to reply. Finally, he settled on a short lie. "I am not hungry." He left the room before he could be questioned further, refusing to look backwards to check his family members' reactions. He could, however, hear Yashamaru's sigh of relief through the closed door. Gaara allowed a small frown to grow on his face, now that he was alone.

This was going to be more difficult than anticipated.

His brows furrowed in an uncharacteristic display of determination. He _would_ win over his family again. He had no other option. He had once negotiated treaties between Sand and their traditional enemies, the ninja of the Waterfall, after all. That had been considered an impossible feat until he had achieved it. He could _do_ this. He was – had been – Kazekage, after all. Failure was not an option.

According to Naruto, hard work and determination could easily be substituted for lack of ability when it came to things such as these. Gaara, personally, preferred to use his brain.

In any case, Gaara actually _had_ ability as well as determination. He just had to utilize them.

But first, he had to go to the bathroom. He needed to throw up.

**Up next: Meeting the Pawns**


	5. Meeting the Pawns

Author's note: First of all, I'd like to apologize formy(lack of) speed ingetting this chapter out. I've been bogged down with written assignments lately, and... yeah, it's been bad. But I've managed to get this chapter out "ahead" of schedule (ie, before the date I told most people). 

As I'm sure many of you who reviewed my last few chapters have noticed, I enjoy replying to reviews.It's one of the things I most enjoy about this website. I enjoy thanking people for giving me what most authors beg for. 

That being said, I'm afraid that I can't answer your reviews if you're posting them anonymously. If you did so, please contact me, and I'd love to talk with you about this fic!(I'm also willing to drop plot-worthy hints or thoughts on what's to come, if that's to your liking.) I'm looking at you, **webweaver **and **Nemesis Jedi**! 

Oh, and I encourage everyone to vote in the reader's opinion poll I have in my profile.Your votes won't affect what's actually going to happen in this fic (kind of like Canadian elections, that way), but I'd like to know what people think is going to happen. 

And now, back to your regularly scheduled programming. 

* * *

**Chapter Five: Meeting the Pawns**

With movements careful to conserve water, which was precious in the desert, as one can imagine, Gaara rinsed what Naruto would eloquently call the "yuck" off of his face. 

He hadn't thought that Yashamaru would try something like this so soon. He knew that the man had volunteered to take on a mission to assassinate him around this time; Yashamaru had admitted as such the last time around. That mission had lead to the... encounter on the roof that had resulted in his uncle's death. 

The poison hidden in his portion of fried rice had been particularly potent. If he hadn't had the healing ability bestowed upon him by demonic chakra, he probably wouldn't have made it to the bathroom to throw it back up before it caused massive organ failure. 

At least he had managed to hold onto his composure. Gaara wasn't sure that he wanted his siblings knowing that the only family member of theirs who was actually "nice" to them was actually trying to kill him. 

However... Poisons were one of the few ways to get past his sand defense. Either the man had merely stumbled across this weakness of his by chance, thinking that it would be the simplest and safest way for him to do his nephew in, or Yashamaru had analyzed his weaknesses enough to know the perfect way to kill him. If it was the former, Gaara hoped that the man's luck wouldn't hold and that he still had a chance to win him over. If it was the latter, well... he wasn't looking forward to killing his uncle. Again.

Gaara ran a handful of water through his red hair to cool himself down. Some wet, gritty and ever-present sand dripped from the locks of hair hanging across his forehead. Gaara examined his image in the mirror. His forehead was smooth and devoid of any self-depreciating symbolic tattoos. He only looked… tired, but that wasn't unusual. He had survived too many attempts on his life before to really appear affected anymore. He didn't appear too haggard, or on the verge of collapse, so he had been worse. He looked so incredibly _young_ though: not a wrinkle anywhere. His hair was still violently red, without a gray hair in sight, which was a nice change, he supposed. Naruto would say so. His eyes, though, weren't those of a child. He could tell that much. He had seen far too much to disguise his inner sense of experience. 

Luckily, most people made a habit of avoiding his gaze. 

Gaara didn't have any excuses for any sudden bursts of knowledge that he might display. However, he likely wouldn't be letting as many things slip, or at least not as much as Naruto undoubtedly would be. He had very good self control – he had to. And anyway, no-one really paid much attention to him in the first place. For all they knew, he really _could_ have known jounin-level techniques at the age of six. 

In any case, everyone was probably still too afraid of him to actually question him about, well, anything. Short of building a pedestal in the middle of the city and showcasing advanced jutsu to all and sundry for during the busiest hours of the weekly market, no one would have any idea of what he was capable of. Being considered a monster did come with the advantage of automatic privacy and grudging respect.

* * *

"Oi! Get out of here!" The shopkeeper's words were punctuated by a thrown cabbage, which Naruto summarily caught as he fled. Its leaves were browning; the storekeeper wouldn't waste perfectly good produce on a demon-brat like him.

He had really taken having his own chef for granted, Naruto mused to himself as he was chased out of the fifth grocery store this morning. He hadn't had to actually do something so menial as to go _shopping_ in decades. 

After the first time he had been thrown bodily from a store, Naruto decided that, if nothing else, this enterprise would be a perfect test of his youthful body's skills. He would see if he would be spotted as he tried to stealthily sneak into grocery stores to buy necessities of life. Many civilians who lived in Konoha had once been ninja hopefuls who had failed the academy graduation exam one too many times, so more civilians than you would expect had basic knowledge of ninja arts. 

As it was, he wasn't doing too badly. He had almost made it to the cash register with a loaf of bread and some instant ramen this last time. But then, as luck would have it, the manager, a chuunin who'd lost a leg during the Kyuubi attack, had managed to spot his stealthy movement towards the front of the store, and had forcibly kicked him out.

Well, there was one shopkeeper whom he was pretty sure didn't have any ninja training. More importantly, Naruto was fairly certain that he actually let him into his establishment. 

There was nothing for it: Ichiraku for breakfast it was.

Content with this thought, Naruto began walking towards where he still remembered the store being. It should come as no surprise that he would remember where the ramen stand was, but not the apartment of his youth. He'd spent much more time eating ramen than sleeping, after all. 

Hands behind his head, humming, and almost skipping along, Naruto had a smile for anyone who even deigned to look in his direction with a less-than-usual amount of hate in their eyes. He liked to think that someday, they would smile back. 

Still humming a jaunty tune, he was just about to turn the corner onto the street when someone in the middle of a _shunshin no jutsu_ barreled right into him, sending them both to the ground. '_Chuunin_,' Naruto thought automatically as he was thrown to the pavement. '_Genin don't have enough control to blur that fast, but a Chuunin would be cocky enough about mastering the technique not to notice they were about to run into someone. A Jounin would be too paranoid to use it in a crowded city, for fear of attracting enemy attention. Plus, they have more practical ways of getting around than flashy body blurring.' _And sure enough, when Naruto blinked and opened his eyes at the person who had knocked him down, who was also just getting back onto his feet... it was indeed a chuunin: one Umino Iruka. 

Forgetting himself, Naruto gave his best gleeful smile and said in a louder than normal tone of voice: "Good morning Iruka-sensei!" And he meant it. 

The chuunin froze, clearly staring at the person... no, _thing_ that he had knocked down. Naruto realized his mistake immediately. He was too young to have met Iruka-sensei... whose parents had been killed by the Kyuubi. Therefore, the hate in the young man's eyes was probably pretty justified. But nothing really prepared Naruto for the swift kick in the side he received from his former mentor. "Watch where you're going, brat!" Iruka spat – he actually _spat! _– on the ground, just narrowly missing the blond's small, sandaled feet. 

Naruto couldn't help it. Later on, he would blame it on the young age of his new body, but he knew that there was a deeper, more psychological reason than that. 

In any case, he began to cry. 

* * *

Iruka couldn't help but feel vaguely guilty. He tried to tell himself that it was just the Kyuubi brat – the _thing_ that had killed his parents – and that it was just using crocodile tears to get his sympathy... It wasn't even human.

They were awfully realistic tears, though.

His feeling of guilt wasn't assuaged until he had blurred out of sight again in another _shunshin no jutsu_. 'Out of sight, out of mind,' as they said. He didn't have time to be thinking about this demon, anyway; he had been summoned to see the Hokage. This was an unusual enough event that it warranted a speedy answer. Certainly, he worked for the man, both in his capacity as an academy teacher and as someone to man the mission desk, but it wasn't often that he was summoned to see the leader of the village personally. 

Something was "up". And he would soon find out what it was. 

* * *

Just because Gaara didn't sleep didn't mean he didn't get tired. He was often outright _exhausted_. But as most insomniacs learn, there is a point in which exhaustion is turned to almost painful awareness of the world. Sounds become magnified, everything seems sharp to the eye, and even the softest of clothes become unbearably wrinkly, itchy and uncomfortable. All of these things stop the insomniac from getting the well-deserved rest that they crave.

Gaara was in this state _at all times_.

He settled himself into a comfortable-looking chair in the corner of the living room with the intention to meditate, or maybe just to read, depending on whether or not he could clear his mind. It wasn't healthy, even for someone with demonic chakra to keep them going, to have to stay awake all of the time. Besides, meditation put him in a relaxed state of mind, which was as close to real sleep as he could safely get most of the time. Reading was merely a distraction, not a form of true rest.

It should also come as no surprise that Gaara was very well-read – he had twice as many hours in the day as anyone else did, after all. He couldn't spend them _all_ training or meditating, although many of his advisors seemed to think that he should spend most of them doing paperwork. 

"He Who Never Sleeps" had been one of his epithets while in office, along with "Godaime Kazekage", "Vessel Of Shukaku", and so forth. In practice, that had meant that his ninjas could meet with him at any hour of the night and he wouldn't have any excuse not to see them. It also meant that he couldn't beg off doing paperwork because he had to sleep, unlike one blond ninja he could name. He had had to do week-long stints of paperwork-signing before, when some big project had had to be approved. Those were some of his worst memories of being in office, right up there with that time someone almost succeeded in assassinating Kankurou and meeting with civilian city leaders.

He did enjoy being so much more productive than his Leaf counterpart, though. It gave him something he could brag about. Not that he was prone to bragging.

Gaara released a breath that he had been holding and tried to relax in his sitting position on the chair. He closed his eyes and breathed in slowly, then out again. In, then out. 

Of course, as soon as he began to relax, Shukaku rose to the challenge in the back of his mind. Gaara firmly shoved the angry consciousness back down. It took hardly any effort, especially after he had gone through so much trouble to erect mental blocks the day before. He reinforced them, though, just to be sure. He kept his breathing steady, face completely impassive and inscrutable.

Just because he appeared calm didn't mean that he was untroubled. Far from it. Few but Naruto knew that the blanker Gaara looked, the more extreme the emotion he was blocking. 

His face could mask the rage of Shukaku, after all. The Ichibi was said to be the most wrathful of the tailed beasts. Gaara had actually developed the ability to show emotions, such as amusement or happiness, on his face in his autumn years. Of course, they were never as evident as the expressions on Naruto's face, after all, but it has gotten to the point where the crinkle in his eyes was so obvious that even a genin could tell that Gaara was pleased. Now, divining the _cause_ of this amusement was a completely different matter altogether. Due to political necessity, Gaara had never grown out of hiding his inner plans and opinions.

He turned his mind to a more useful train of thoughts. 

Yashamaru was definitely going to be a problem that he would have to address, and soon; this, he knew with certitude. Shukaku grumbled something about simply killing the man, and being done with it. There were more references to blood and gore than that, of course, but one had to edit such things out of polite thoughts.

Gaara gave no indication that he even heard the beast. It was the only way to keep sane. Once again, he shoved Shukaku to the back of his mind, where it belonged. Inwardly, he wished that Chiyo-obaa-sama had sprung for a more comprehensive seal, something like Naruto's… one that would have allowed him to get some peace and quiet in his head. 

* * *

Sometimes, no matter how strong a person one is, one just needs a good, long cry. They shouldn't come often, but it's unhealthy not to have them at all, especially if one's in a stressful situation. 

However, Naruto didn't cry for long. One didn't become Hokage if one was prone to crying over every little thing. 

...Even if this "little thing" felt far from inconsequential to him. 

Naruto wasn't sure that he still felt like eating anything at the moment, but then again, if there was one thing he had learned in all of his years as a ninja, you couldn't really do anything on an empty stomach. Sometimes when things popped up unexpectedly ("things" like, well, enemy ninja, invasions, unexpected assassination missions for him to assign, unexpected assassination attempts assigned to kill him , or a combination of all the above) he didn't always get a chance to eat something, and he had always regretted it later. 

And so, quickly swiping a hand across his face to dispel the remnants of dampness before anyone else would see – it wouldn't do for him to show any weakness – he made his way towards his beloved Ichiraku. 

* * *

"Ah, come in Iruka-kun. I'll be with you in a moment." The Hokage called at the chuunin's gentle knock on his office door. The voice of the Sandaime always put Iruka at ease. He found his worry regarding this meeting melting away almost instantly after that brief greeting. Entering the room and taking an "at ease" stance in front of the man's desk, Iruka waited to be addressed. 

The old man finished scrutinizing the papers before him and placed them aside, turning his eyes to meet Iruka's.

"I am worried about Naruto's education." Sarutobi got straight to the point.

Iruka felt thrown. "I – sir?" He wasn't even the brat's professor! He really hoped that this wasn't leading to where he thought it was going to lead... 

"Yes." The Sandaime took a long draw from his pipe, sending a small cloud of smoke into the air above his head. "He has been transferred six different times in his first four months of the academy. And with the... debacle this last week, he has missed yet another few weeks of schooling. I believe that he's an intelligent child, who just needs the proper teacher." The man's mouth said 'teacher' but his eyes said 'Iruka.' 

The chuunin knew that perhaps the reason that blond brat only appeared so smart because he was actually a thousand-year-old demon, but he didn't voice that thought. Not to the Hokage, who seemed to have grown... attached to the thing. 

Iruka supposed that the kid did look human enough. He suppressed a disgusted shudder, focusing hard on paying attention to what the Hokage was saying.

"That's why I've decided to suspend a teacher's ability to transfer Naruto. He needs a steady education." The man's eyes crinkled in amusement. "He wants to be Hokage, after all."

Iruka didn't know what to say. He knew that if he opened his mouth, something bit like profanity and more like horrified but wordless screaming would immerge. The chuunin kept his mouth – and thoughts – firmly to himself. It was safer that way.

He didn't _want_ to teach his parent's murderer. But neither could he disappoint the Hokage. _I'm sorry, Mother, Father_, he thought, glancing upwards. 

All he saw was a smoke-stained ceiling. 

* * *

"Welcome!" Teuchi, of Ichiraku Ramen fame, called out with a smile as his first customer of the day sat down at the counter. "What can I get you?" He asked of the blond boy perched on a stool that barely raised him high enough to see over the countertop. 

"Um, I'll have a large miso ramen to start with." The boy said in a subdued tone.

"All right." Teuchi tossed some miso broth mix into the water simmering in one of the pots on the stovetop. "Can I get you anything to drink while you wait?"  
"Just water, thanks." His customer said with a smile. Teuchi noticed it didn't meet his eyes. 

The boy looked upset. He was trying to hide it behind a painful-looking grin, but the chef could tell that the boy had recently been crying. 

Teuchi tossed a plateful of noodles into the pot, sending a burst of miso flavoured steam into the air. The kid was also very young to be out on his own, without any parents. He had a daughter just a few years older than this kid… He hoped soon to have his young daughter working alongside him. At the moment, she was too young, but she had the makings of a great ramen chef like him.

The chef watched his customer out of the corner of his eye as he prepared the order. The boy was staring moodily into his glass of water, which irrationally reminded Teuchi of an old man brooding with a mug of beer. He dismissed the thought as soon as it crossed his mind. The kid was probably sulking over something his parents had refused him. 

Teuchi added the final sprinkling of tempura pieces and one solitary, swirly naruto. There. It was perfect. With the steaming bowl in his hands, the chef turned around to face the customer. The boy was still staring down into his glass with a noticeable aura of depression about him. The older man paused for a moment, thinking. 

What was the harm?

After half a second's contemplation, he decidedly set the bowl of steaming miso ramen in front of the boy. "Here: free of charge." The boy's head shot up and Teuchi was treated to the most elated, watery-eyed expression of gratitude that he had ever seen.  
The ramen chef knew, immediately, that he had done the right thing. He turned back to the stove, trying to hide his smile. 

Unbeknownst to him, he had just won the eternal loyalty of one of the strongest ninja in the whole of Fire country... for a second time.

* * *

Iruka was being guilt-tripped. He knew this, intellectually. He should have been able to resist. All those of chuunin-rank and above had to go through the same torture resistance training courses, but after five minutes of Sarutobi just... _looking_ at him like that convulsively made him want just apologize, cave in and do what the man wanted him to do and more.

Despite the fact that Sarutobi was easily the oldest of all active ninja in the village, he was still, undisputedly, the strongest as well. For all that, though, he didn't often use corporal punishment against those who displeased him. Instead, he was one of those men that people instinctively felt close to. Then, if the Sandaime was unhappy with one of them, in many cases all it took to rectify the problem was a single, long, disappointed look from the man that almost all Konoha shinobi viewed as some sort of grandfather figure. The fear was not of pain, but in making him disappointed in them.

"All right, fine! I'll teach him!" Iruka snapped in exasperation just to get the Hokage to stop _looking_ at him like that, quickly slapping a hand over his mouth when he realized what he had just said to the leader of his village. He began to stammer out an apology, only to have it waved off by Sarutobi. 

"I am glad that you agree." The old man smiled amicably around his pipe, somehow managing to look both benevolent and devious at the same time. Iruka had no doubt that if he had refused just now (if he could have somehow worked up the courage to refuse _the Hokage_), the Sandaime would have found some other way of convincing him. It was the way that the man worked.

Iruka sighed. "When do I start?"

Sarutobi just smiled once more in response, and slid a packet of paperwork across the desk for him to sign. From the title, Iruka gathered that it was the finalization of a student transfer form. The Hokage had been filling it out before he had even arrived. 

Apparently the Hokage had already known that he would agree to his "request." 

Damn it. 

Iruka left the office an hour later, feeling vaguely uneasy about the whole thing.

* * *

Gaara was broken from his meditative trance by the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Automatically, he identified them: not light enough to be Yashamaru's ninja-trained pace, too fast to be Kankuro's slow amble... which left Temari. He was proven right only moments later, when his blonde sister appeared in the open doorway, apparently on her way to the kitchen for a quick snack in the middle of the night. The girl paused as she spotted something curious in the living room. "Gaara, what are you doing up?" Eight-year-old Temari asked with childish curiosity. 

Gaara opened his eyes and shifted his gaze to his sister's face. His eyes glinted in the darkness like those of a cat. "Thinking."

"Oh." There was a brief pause. "Why aren't you in bed?"

"I don't sleep."

"…Um – why?"

Gaara stared. She didn't know? Well, he supposed that made sense, considering he'd never really talked to his siblings until they were put on a genin team together, but by that time, Kankuro and Temari were terrified of him and he hadn't cared. They had probably been told about his inner resident when they made genin and had been put on the same team as him. They had a right to know of the dangers that they faced. Or, rather, they had to know, to help boost their chance of survival.

For a moment, he wondered what Yashamaru had told them about him. He was pretty certain that they knew he was their brother; there was a certain resemblance, but what had been the explanation given for why he was suddenly living with them?

The redhead pondered how to answer her question, finally settling on: "Because if I fall asleep, a monster will eat me." This was actually a surprisingly good answer to give to a child. That, Gaara knew from experience. Even though he generally avoided the younger generations of villagers, he obviously couldn't seclude himself completely from the people he ruled over. He had had to explain to children about his "condition" before.

"So… Do you eat?" Back in the day, Gaara reflected, he would have tried to kill her by now for questioning him in such an annoying fashion. This thought did not show up on his face.

"Yes." He replied, simply.

"All right, do you want to share some sandwiches?"

Gaara considered this offer for a moment. Why not? "Yes."

"Come on, then!" The girl coaxed him out of the room and into the brightly-lit kitchen. Gaara took a seat at the table, and watched her making sandwiches at the counter, perched on a chair so that she could reach it. It was strange seeing Temari looking so… domestic. She normally brow-beat other people – men, such as her brothers – to do the cooking and cleaning. She had always seemed to rather resent the assumption that kunoichi were automatically responsible for the cooking and cleaning just because they possessed a uterus. 

Well, that wasn't strictly true; he knew that his sister wasn't above using her feminine whiles to her advantage. 

Gaara wasn't sure he liked the change. _His _Temari - the one that no longer existed, he thought with a pang of hurt somewhere deep in his chest - would never put up with this sort of thing. She would have made him do the dishes, at least, even if he _was_ Kazekage. 

Perhaps he would, anyway, without being asked.

* * *

Gaara moved differently than most people, Temari noted, watching him out of the corner of her eye as she made the sandwiches. She hadn't seen enough of her little brother before to notice. He kind of moved like those elite ANBU. That was the closest comparison she could think of. But that wasn't quite right: there was something more… animal-like, in his walk, in his look… But he wasn't an animal. Just by looking into his eyes you could see that he was smart. So he couldn't really be described as an animal, either. 

He almost reminded her of the desert, for some reason, but that was silly, because the desert wasn't _alive_...

* * *

**Next Chapter: Game Start**


	6. Game Start

Author's Note: I'm sorry for my lateness! Technically, it's still "before the end of April" over where I live, in the second to last timezone before it becomes "tomorrow", i.e. May 1st… and I hope that you guys enjoy this chapter! It's nearly three times the length of my first one. Once again, I'd also like to thank all of my reviewers! I've thanked the majority of you in person already. For those of you who didn't receive a reply, it was likely because you sent the review in anonymously. I don't bite!

It's strange, but I find that I panic and think "oh, man, there's far too much stuff with Naruto here, I'd best write more scenes with Gaara!" and then I find that a disproportionate number of scenes are indeed with Gaara, not Naruto. D: Oh, well – the next chapter will have more of a focus on our favourite future Hokage.

Hey guys, guess what! :D I have gotten **fanart**! Buni-san was kind enough to draw me a scene from the first chapter. Everyone, go check out the link on my profile and give her some love! Oh, and while you're there, please vote in the **Reader's Opinion Poll.** :3 At the time of writing, Naruto is far in the lead, with Gaara only barely winning over Chuck Norris. ! I mean, I know that Chuck Norris is awesome, but come on, he's not even a ninja. ;) Do you have so little faith in our future Kazekage? **Please vote!**

In addition, I would like to tell people that I will be going away for a month and a bit to France, starting June 2nd. I'll do my best to update before I leave, but if I don't update by that time, I won't be able to work on the next chapter until the second week of July or so. Please don't begrudge me if I'm obscenely slow updating! Oh, and if anybody else is going to be attending the Japan Expo in Paris in early July, please feel free to come up and say "hi" (ou « bonjour », si vous voulez) if you recognize me! I'll be wearing a Fujiwara no Sai (from Hikaru no Go) costume, which I shall post a photo of in my profile as soon as I've finished making it.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.

* * *

**Chapter Six: Game Start**

It was rainy all day. It was the kind of light rainfall that wouldn't be bad in short bursts, but instead lasted for incredibly long amounts of time, pervading everything with a persistent and unpleasantly cold dampness. Konoha was a beautiful village in the sunlight, but in the gloom and mist of the rain, the place took on the appearance of a washed-out old photograph.

The weather made things more than five feet away difficult to discern from the greyness of the background. This could make anybody feel depressed. It had the added effect of making the ninja inhabitants of the village feel paranoid.

Naruto, for one, was jealous of Gaara. The bastard was probably sunning himself in the wonderful desert weather. The blond grumbled curses a six-year-old shouldn't know under his breath to himself as he jogged back towards his apartment under an old umbrella with two tines bent out of shape. At least the thing didn't have any holes, which was more than he could say about the roof of his apartment...

Naruto wished he could use some chakra to blur to get to his apartment faster, but he knew that Gaara would never let him live it down if he was revealed to be from the future because he didn't want to get _wet_. Well, perhaps that was being unfair. Gaara wasn't the kind of person to gloat. Stare in hidden amusement? Yes. Chuckle in the depths of his mind, where only the Shukaku could hear him? Perhaps. But he would never gloat out loud. It was almost worse, that way: knowing that Gaara may be laughing at you (or not) but being unable to point and go "hey, that was mean!" He couldn't exactly ask his friend and peer to stop doing _nothing_.

Finally arriving in his apartment, Naruto shook some persistent raindrops from his pathetic-looking umbrella before placing it in a chipped flower vase that he used as an improvised umbrella stand.

"All right, ramen!" He crowed to himself as he crossed the room to his kitchen corner (one room apartments were useful in that respect, at least: everything was conveniently all together).

With a flourish, Naruto removed one of two dozen cups of instant ramen from his shopping bag and placed it almost reverently on the counter. His haul had been a challenge to acquire, as usual. His success this time had been in part due to three cans of paint, a length of rope, a towering but fragile display of canned nuts, a bunshin to distract the store manager, and a strategic henge. Even so, he had nearly been found out at the end. He would have to be careful not to go to that store again very soon. Luckily, he had managed to purchase a decent amount of ramen – food of gods and future Hokage. Not only was it cheap and delicious, it also kept very well. A long shelf life was very useful, especially when he didn't know when he would next have a successful shopping trip, which were always few and far between.

As he prepared his supper, he noticed several muted chakra signatures alight on the roof. ANBU, most likely: several of them, trying to mask their chakra. They were probably there to watch him. He continued nonchalantly making his supper, giving no indication that he knew that they were there. He wouldn't be expected to know. He knew that they were probably there under the orders of the Hokage.

When he had come into office, he had sorted through some of the old paperwork and old files that they had on himself, just to see what the Sandaime and the Godaime had been up to. That had been how he had discovered that he had actually had a rotating guard of ANBU watching over him since he had been very young, even past the point that he had become a genin. Naruto had gathered that they were a compromise, of sorts, between the Hokage and the council of Konoha. The Kyuubi brat wasn't to be trusted, and so was watched as an enemy would be. It made him sad in a hollow sort of way, the feeling of not being trusted. He had felt it less as he had grown to become a trusted village leader. Now he had to get used to it again.

But back to the issue at hand: what to do about the watching ANBU. _Well_, Naruto thought, logically, pouring his boiling water over his cup ramen, _What would Gaara do in this situation? Besides kill them? Or smother and subdue them with sand? Or go up onto the roof, acting for all the world like he went up there all the time, and stare at them, blankly, like they were crazy, until they went away? _

In the end, Naruto decided on just the opposite of such things. Sure, Gaara was his friend, but the guy wasn't exactly known for his mastery of social niceties.

* * *

"So… how come you aren't in the academy?" Temari asked, apparently uneasy with nothing but the sandwiches, the table and the serious silence between them.

Gaara chewed on his mouthful of sandwich quietly for a moment, swallowed, and replied in his usual monotone, "I'm too young."

"But you're six, aren't you? There are some six-year-olds in the youngest class. Some five-year-olds too."

Gaara shrugged. He was a demon brat who could already take down any shinobi assassins that they could throw at him. They weren't about to teach a failed weapon with clearly ambivalent loyalties to Suna how to be _more_ deadly. The first time around, he had learned by instinct, watching others, and later, from a petrified Baki, his jounin "sensei" and handler.

"That's just silly. You should ask fa- um, somebody to get you in." She paused, awkwardly, and then added: "It's really fun! My teacher says that maybe Kankuro and me can graduate soon." Gaara knew that she had been about to tell him to ask their father, but had then realized that wait, their father didn't seem to like _any_ of them, and so wouldn't be doing them any favours anytime soon.

So Gaara shrugged once again.

Temari turned her attention back to her sandwich, and Gaara frowned, internally. Talking to this Temari was more difficult than he would have thought it would have been. What did children talk about, amongst themselves, with no adults present? He couldn't remember. Maybe he had never known in the first place.

He continued to eat his sandwich in the uneasy silence. Temari avoided his gaze, staring down at her crumb-spotted plate. There was an innocuous smear of peanut butter on her chin. Gaara couldn't remember ever seeing his sister look so _young_ before. She practically radiated naïveté. It was almost unnerving, to know that this little girl would grow to become one of the strongest and most deadly kunoichi that the Sand had ever known.

But then again, he supposed that he, the demon of Suna, looked just as "cute" at the moment, although he probably looked less naïve, even now. He was certain that the "look" didn't suit him.

Temari, having finished staring at her empty plate, stood up from the table and took her dishes to the sink.

Gaara could think of nothing to say, so he decided upon a strategic retreat.

His chair scraped against the sandy floor as he stood up (sand pervaded everything in the desert, be it buildings, clothing, or even food). Gaara walked towards the door, and his sand followed. Temari didn't watch her little brother go.

He paused in the doorway. "Temari."

His sister looked up all of a sudden, nearly dropping the plate into the sink. "Um, yes?" Wariness was a good thing to cultivate in young ninja. Gaara approved. Cautious shinobi invariably lived longer than bull-headed ones… with the possible exception of a certain blond future Hokage that he knew (but then again, the ability to heal fatal wounds with demonic chakra was always a useful trick.)

Gaara met her eyes. "Thank you for the sandwich." And then he was gone.

* * *

Naruto had peripherally monitored the few movements of his ANBU watchers all throughout his dinner. He didn't envy them, sitting out there in the cold and the wet, while he ate his hot and awesomely delicious cup ramen.

Naruto had once heard of a custom from a place so far away the country could have just been made up. People believed in little gods or fairies or demons or something, and they would put offerings in little dishes to leave out at night to ask for their protection, or maybe just so they would pass their houses by.

After a moment's thought that night, Naruto put some of his still warm ramen (leftover from his eleventh bowl) in a sealable container, and put it out on the windowsill. He was careful to lock the window afterwards, even though it would be useless against any ANBU that decided to come looking for more food. Naruto seriously doubted whether any of them would even touch it – they were probably too paranoid and afraid of poisons – but it made him feel better that the ANBU who were forced to watch him had the option of something warm to eat.

Besides, it might be his Kakashi-sensei out there.

He wasn't surprised when he got up the next morning, though, to find that there was an untouched bowl of cold ramen sitting outside his windowsill, dripping with rainwater.

It was probably for the best. He would have actually been worried if the ANBU watching him had been green enough to accept food from the subject that they were supposed to be monitoring. Still, Naruto supposed if the ANBU grated on his nerves too much, he could always just be really, _really _irritating, which would make his watchers less likely to pay close attention to him… although, if they were _good_ ANBU, they likely wouldn't fall for such a simple trick.

* * *

The house was quiet. Temari had gone to bed hours ago, and it was still just a little bit too early even for ninja-in-training and their chuunin caretaker to be up. Gaara was always up, though. After Temari had gone back to sleep, Gaara had crept into the kitchen once more and had washed the dishes, just as he had promised himself earlier. This task proved difficult when he realised that, humiliatingly enough, he was actually too short to reach the sink. He had to drag a chair to the counter to get at the water tap.

Washing the dishes took all of ten minutes, which then left him wondering what to do. He normally didn't have to worry about finding things to occupy himself; there was usually an endless array of things requiring the Kazekage's attention. It was bizarre to find himself with nothing pressing to attend to.

In the end, Gaara decided to go outside and walk the streets, and watch as his village woke up.

The sun had only barely risen, so it was still chilly. The desert wouldn't take on its characteristic heat until the sun had been up for a few hours. Already, despite the cold, there were a few people awake. There were ninja on guard duty were just returning from their night shifts, their replacements already up and about. The bakers had already been up for hours, and were only just now taking their wares out of the oven. Gaara passed by one of these bakeries just as an assistant – a middle-aged civilian woman with strong-looking arms – was putting a tray of breakfast muffins in the window. She looked startled to see so young a child out alone, so early in the morning, but she didn't seem to recognize him. Gaara gave her a short nod, one that would hopefully be interpreted as friendly, and continued on, away from the delicious smell of freshly-baked pastries. He didn't remember that specific bakery from his time, but then again, civilian businesses came and went often. Some people were more suited to life in a shinobi village than others, after all.

As he wandered the sandy streets, as silent as any slow-moving sand dune, Gaara became aware of the raucous sound of children's laughter. Then, as he drew closer, he could hear the sound of something hitting pavement, and then, running feet. The former Kazekage slowly rounded the corner of the building closest to the sound of the voices. There, lay a courtyard where four children were playing ball. A lonely swing set was set up to one side. It was to this structure that Gaara made his way. He sat down on the swing, still unnoticed, and observed as the children played their game. After a few minutes of watching the children's interactions in silence, he was beginning to divine the rules of the game that they were playing. There were no teams; all four seemed to be playing for themselves. The goal of the game didn't seem to be to simply catch the ball, but to avoid having one of the other three get it. However, it seemed that one wasn't allowed to hold the ball for longer than three footsteps. Kicking the ball out of reach of the others seemed to be the preferred method of handling. Occasionally, one would be declared "out", usually after missing a catch, causing the ball to go out of bounds. Being "out" seemed to entail sitting on the side of the playing field for a minute, and being unable to handle the ball. Gaara didn't know if this was supposed to be a well-known game, or simply one whose rules were made up as these four children played it.

Suddenly, a stray kick caused the ball to go wide. It bounced off of a pillar at an odd angle, and finally came to rest on a ledge a story or so up one of the buildings that composed the square.

"Aww, man!" one of the kids exclaimed in disgust.

"What should we do?" one of the others asked.

Gaara felt strange. There was something… oddly familiar about this situation. He supposed it was just because it was a typical childhood scene, one that he had only ever seen from afar. Just days before he had gone back in time, in fact, he had watched a similar group of kids play a different game of ball, watching from the Kazekage's tower. That must be it.

Gaara glanced at the children, who were scuffling their feet and each demanding of the others to _do something_ about getting the ball back.

Gaara probably could have just climbed up there, clinging to the wall with chakra. A kid with good chakra control was much less threatening than the Demon of Suna. But Gaara had gotten into the habit of using his sand to handle things out of reach over the years, whether they be dropped objects, a scroll he needed from across the room, or even light taps to get the attention of people. He hardly even thought about it anymore. His sand just moved. Such was the case now. A wisp of sand detached itself from the piles that lay in ever-present drifts in the Hidden Village of Sand, and threaded itself through the air to deftly knock the ball off of the ledge. It fell in a slow arc directly into Gaara's outstretched hands.

The eyes of the children followed the ball's progress. Gaara stepped forward and gravely deposited the ball into the slack hands of the closest child. This seemed to snap the kid out of his trance.

"It's Gaara!" That child screamed, dropping the ball and immediately beginning to run away. This, of course, set the rest of them off, and they all scattered away from the demon-child in their midst.

"Wait!" Gaara called out impulsively, and his sand shot out to stop them instinctively. With a sudden jolt of déjà vu, the former Kazekage realized just exactly where this was going: children screaming in pain, a defiant Yashamaru trying to calm he, the out of control _demon_, down, and the injured children rejecting the _demon's_ help. With a violent hand gesture, he reigned his sand in before it could do more than graze the ankle of the boy with the funny-looking, spiked black hair. The kid only screamed more loudly as he fled.

Moments later, the courtyard was empty of all but Gaara and his sand. The desert wind whistled, blowing a small plume of sand along the ground in front of the redhead's feet. He made no noise; he was certain that if he listened hard enough, he would still be able to hear the sounds of screaming and the pounding of running feet as the children fled. He was a kage-level ninja (mentally, anyway), and he probably could have chased them down and forced them to listen – or play – with him, but Gaara doubted that such actions would endear him to them overmuch.

This was definitely going to be harder than anticipated.

…He had never liked children much, anyway.

Gaara let a small sigh escape from his emotionless façade, and turned to walk back to his apartment. He retraced his steps, the early-morning sun shining directly into his eyes, making him next to blind. He passed by the bakery he had seen earlier; the window display was already half-empty of muffins. He walked on.

As his apartment came into view, Gaara came to a sudden realization: he was feeling _sorry_ for himself! This thought was so potent that it stopped him in his tracks for a brief moment. He couldn't walk down the path of self-pity. That would get him nowhere. He remembered distinctly that whenever insults had gotten too vicious, and the assassination attempts had gotten too frequent, Naruto had one thing to say to him: "Feeling sorry for yourself will get you nowhere. Stop it." And then Naruto would slap him upside the head, and Gaara would let him.

Gaara looked up at his _family's_ apartment, gaze hardening. He couldn't let a few screaming children and a murderous uncle get in the way of him achieving his goal. He would just have to try harder, and that was that.

* * *

Naruto had rediscovered the _fun_ in being a child. Well, sort of: it was more a case of "discovering" in the first place than "rediscovering". He was no longer tentative: he refused to back down and go away to play elsewhere under the demanding glares of parents. He used sheer _charm_ to convince children that he was a fun kid to play with. And it worked… and he found that he was enjoying himself. They didn't seem to care that he didn't know the rules of their games very well, and were all too happy to teach him. He was also still enjoying the novelty of being _young_ again.

Of course, he had the added challenge of subterfuge, but that just made his "game" all the more engaging. Trying to get around ANBU members was a very nice training exercise, made all the more useful because he couldn't properly train around them. (His mind was limited by his body. He was still only capable of what a child was capable of, despite his memories of the contrary.) They had probably been informed about his bunshin-making abilities, but Naruto faked being unskilled with them. Oftentimes, if he needed to go places and didn't want the ANBU to follow (places like, say, forbidden sections of the Hokage's library, or maybe just to the washroom without having the niggling feeling that someone was watching his every move), he would make a few sloppy bunshins and send those off as decoys for the ANBU, all the while making other bunshins on the sly to run off in secret to the training fields. The ANBU weren't aware, of course, of his sheer _stamina_ when it came to bunshins. They seemed to think that four or five was his limit (this would already be spectacular for a jounin-level ninja, let alone one with hardly any ninja training), and Naruto was happy to keep it that way. He often sent them off on childish pranks – which were all the more easy to do because of the extra pairs of hands he could create – which again blurred his purpose to his watchers. Naruto _wanted_ them to dismiss him as a child… for now, anyway.

Still, the ANBU weren't trained to be sloppy, and Naruto had to be careful… which was again a part of the fun. There was something about fooling the elite members of one's village time and time again that made one feel… proud. In a sinister, giggling madly to oneself kind of way.

* * *

It was during the first week of the second month after he had returned to the past when Naruto received his first letter from Gaara, carried by a disgruntled and tired but normal-looking Suna messenger hawk. The boy fed it some leftover bacon and sent it on its way with his thanks. It wouldn't do to be impolite to their means of communication. He then turned his attention to the missive that Gaara had sent him.

It was a simple message: "Got free sugared bun and a smile from the new baker on Central Street." Naruto grinned.

The game was _on_.

* * *

The "kyuubi-brat-watch" shift started to become more interesting for the ANBU after that.

If nothing else, the ANBU were kept on their toes – was the demon luring the children of the village to their deaths? Or was he just lulling them into a false sense of security through overly enthusiastic companionship?

Kakashi narrowed his mismatched eyes from behind his masks, watching from a hidden location in the canopy of a tree across the courtyard in which the Kyuubi brat was "playing". The ANBU agent with the crow mask on the branch beside him flicked his hands to sign out a message to him: '_What __**is**__ the beast doing_?' Kakashi conceded the point. What _was_ the kid doing? Especially with all of those children in a circle? And why were they singing gibberish. What was this "stella ella ola?" Was this some sort of demonic trick?

The gray-haired ANBU vowed to watch the brat more closely from now on.

(Sometimes, training children to be killing machines has a downside – without a childhood, how can they discern hidden threats from children's games? Paranoia must have healthy limits.)

* * *

"You seem happier, lately." The Hokage noted in one of the boy's regimented visits to his office.

"Yes, well, I figured that there's really no point in moping and being sad, right? It's not going to get me anywhere. So I may as well do things to make me happy. Does that make sense?"

The Hokage smiled around his pipe. "It does indeed, Naruto."

The eighty-seven-year-old boy smiled back.

* * *

The boy deliberately shied away from people that he remembered even decades later as being particularly abusive towards him. Naruto made the movements even more obvious when he sensed the muted chakra signatures of his ANBU guards following closely behind him.

He did his best to look like the downtrodden orphan – who still had _hope_ – as he could. He wasn't above using the "cuteness" of his younger body to good use. He was well aware of how differently people reacted when confronted with such things as women and children in distress. There had been a non-perverted reason for inventing the Sexy no Jutsu, after all. What could be more disarming than a hysterical naked woman? That technique had been incredibly well-known and had been growing in popularity even half a century after its inception. For several decades, it was even taught among ANBU 

initiates as a new forbidden technique, to use in battle when all else failed and the operative needed the element of surprise. And the Sexy no Jutsu was _incredibly_ surprising. It had been designed to be so.

Unfortunately, he probably couldn't reveal his famed (and infamous) technique just yet. It would still be considered much too advanced to have been invented by someone his age. He'd likely have to wait a few more years yet, mores the pity.

He had other things to focus on, at any rate, like his classes. Naruto didn't realize that he was already enrolled in the academy until an ANBU had dragged him to class after his second day of skipping. He'd thought he was too young to be in class, but then again, he was still kind of unsure of the exact date. Naruto made a mental note to himself to pick up a newspaper. He couldn't exactly turn to one of his classmates (none of whom he really recognized) and ask them for the day, month and year. He thought it strange that he actually couldn't name anybody in his class, and he only remembered halfway through his first day back that he had failed the genin exam three times the first time around. This was probably his original "graduating" class.

After two weeks, he was proven wrong when he was transferred into Iruka-sensei's class.

* * *

Naruto was, for lack of a better word, nervous. Currently, he was sitting in the back of the classroom, head on his arms, which were folded and resting on top of his desk. He was waiting for Iruka-sensei to show up. Naruto had arrived early, for once; he didn't want to make a worse impression than he already had. He was sitting in the back, strategically, so that he could observe his classmates but avoid their attention.

He vaguely remembered his new classmates' faces… They certainly looked different without wrinkles—or puberty. Sakura's hair was distinctive enough, and Kiba's Inuzuka clan face markings weren't entirely subtle either. It was strange to think of these children as his friends and companions. Well, technically, they weren't yet. He was going to have to work on that.

Just then, the door to the classroom burst open and in walked Iruka-sensei. Naruto looked up, hoping that this meeting would be different, and it would be the same old Iruka who bought him ramen and listened as he bitched about Kakashi-sensei and Sasuke-teme and gave him advice on how to talk to Sakura and _understood_ when he said that he was going to become Hokage and you better believe it… and his heart plummeted when he saw the stormy expression on the man's face. He should have known not to be optimistic in this case. Naruto watched as Iruka glanced around the classroom, before the man's gaze settled on him, in the last row in the back.

Iruka's eyes narrowed. Naruto gave a small smile. Iruka's eyes narrowed further. Naruto sank down in his seat, wanting to hide, but knowing that he couldn't. He had to face this. That didn't stop him from almost sighing in relief when Iruka turned his attention to the blackboard and began writing down the day's lesson-plan.

Naruto could see that Iruka's knuckles were white around his grip on the chalk. His teacher snapped the piece of chalk twice as he wrote.

"Henge!" Iruka barked, turning to face the class and resolutely avoiding looking up into the final row, where a certain_ demon-child_ was sitting. "An illusion in which shinobi can take on the appearance of something that they are _not_." Naruto caught the emphasis. "As academy students, you will learn the basics of this technique, enough to be able to take on the appearance of one of your classmates, or even me. _Some _of you will never learn more than this." Iruka was outright glaring at Naruto, now. Yes, that was most definitely his 'super-scary angry face'. "To graduate from the academy, you must be able to hold the henge for at least five minutes. More experienced ninja can hold it for _days_. Some can even make themselves invisible, to an extent." Naruto wished that _he_ could become invisible. "Any questions?" Iruka-sensei asked.

Everyone in the classroom was silent. No one dared to ask a question and perhaps have Iruka's wrath transferred to _them_.

"Recognizing when someone else is using a henge is also an invaluable technique." Iruka-sensei's eyes flashed. "Uzumaki."

Naruto sat up straight as many of the students eyes fell upon the stranger in their midst for the first time. "Yes… sir?" It was best to be polite.

Iruka's eyes narrowed further. "How would you determine if someone is using a henge?" Naruto knew that academy student weren't expected to know this. He knew that for sure, because he had overhauled the academy curriculum himself to include it. _He_ knew the signs, of course – little idiosyncrasies, like shadows where there should be light, a slightly different shade of haircolour on a close friend – that helped to determine if something was an illusion – but he couldn't exactly say so.

He wasn't supposed to know. He was dead-last Naruto, after all. "I don't know, sir."

Iruka made a dismissive noise, as if to say '_of course the demon wouldn't want to reveal its secrets_.'

"Well, then: what is the exact difference between a henge and lower forms of genjutsu?" Naruto had only learned that distinction after two years in the field as a jounin. It honestly didn't matter overmuch, as both were dispelled in the same manner. "I don't know, sir." Iruka made another dismissive noise.

Naruto could tell by some of the students' murmurings that his definitely wasn't normal behaviour from their sensei. Somehow, this didn't make him feel all that better about his situation. Naruto understood what Iruka was doing; he was trying to demoralize him, make him slip up, or perhaps just get upset enough to leave the academy.

_Maybe it was a fluke, last time, that Iruka-sensei liked me… _Naruto thought, despondently, slouching further down behind his desk. He could tell that this was only going to be the start of things.

The final school bell at the end of the day had never been a more welcome sound.

* * *

Naruto was very sad to have lost his senior discount in many stores. However, he found that a young and cute body was almost as good. If he slapped some mud onto his cheeks and hair, people were hard-pressed to identify him as the demon child, and if he put on the right pathetically hungry face, the kind of face that screamed "I am an orphan! Feed me! Give me a hug!", sometimes people actually did, if they didn't realize who he was.

It was nice to feel a little bit loved, or at least not unwanted, for once. Naruto was resolutely avoiding thinking about the academy and its related… tensions.

Today was a beautiful day for a walk. There were many citizens of Konoha who apparently had the same thought as he, as the streets were lively with the bustle of people. Naruto stopped to admire some pastries in the window of a shop, trying to figure out if the shopkeeper liked him enough yet to give him one for free... or at least not sell him one at an extortionary price. In the reflection of the glass, Naruto spotted a pair of dark-haired brothers, the elder carrying the younger. How sweet.

He focussed more of his attention on the pair when he spotted the Uchiha clan symbol emblazoned on the back of the kid's shirt. With a blink, he realized that it was Sasuke. He almost hadn't recognized him, as he was both young and happy. He supposed, then, that the one carrying him had to be… Itachi.

The older Uchiha was speaking to the younger with a small smile: a rarity among that family of angst-buckets. In response, the little Sasuke actually laughed. It was… bizarre. Almost surreal.

Sasuke was… actually happy.

Naruto turned to walk on with a smile. It truly was a wonderful day.

Suddenly, a thought struck Naruto, stopping him in his tracks with its intensity.

Oh, shit. What was he going to do about Itachi?

* * *

Author's Note: Yes, what _is_ Naruto going to be doing about Itachi? Find out next time…! :D

"There are some six-year-olds in the youngest class. Some five-year-olds too." Was I the only one that thought "yay, ninja kindergarten!" at this line? Probably. D: I am such a dork.

Oh, and did anybody catch the Harry Potter reference(s)? There was also a "Howl's Moving Castle" reference, but I myself didn't realize until my sister pointed it out. Cookies to those who can correctly identify them!

**Next Chapter: Changing Tactics**


	7. Changing Tactics

**Chapter Seven: Changing Tactics**

Author's Note: I'd just like to state right off that this fic is, indeed, firmly **alternate universe**. Yes, I have read the latest chapters of the manga (aren't they _awesome?!_), but I have only incorporated a select few elements of them. Please, don't complain that I haven't included this-and-this detail of back-story, or that "oh, this-and-this doesn't quite fit because of the first panel on page 12 in chapter 386!" Yes, I'm aware of Itachi's new back-story (or, at least, what has been revealed thus far as of chapter 401). I have discarded some of "canon", just as I did with Gaara (canon Gaara doesn't have Shukaku inside him anymore, right?), so it is already alternate universe. Not being identical to canon is what makes fanfiction fun to read and write. :)

I also ended up writing many of the Uchiha portions of this chapter several months ago (alongside the first and second chapters, in fact), and scarily enough, aspects of what I thought was an original and unexpected take on the Uchiha massacre… was canon. I really should have posted this chapter sooner, so I could prove my prophetic abilities.

All of those who correctly guessed the following references in the last chapter take a cookie!

Harry Potter Reference #1: Naruto feeding bacon to the messenger bird from Sand, like Harry does with Hedwig.

Harry Potter Reference #2: Iruka's Snape-like characterization in the second to last scene of my last chapter.

Howl's Moving Castle Reference: The line "The eighty-seven-year-old boy smiled back" is a reference to the title of one of the songs on the Howl's Moving Castle soundtrack (the movie by Hayao Miyazaki), entitled "90-sai no shoujo" (translated as "90 Year Old Young Girl"). Yeah... it was really, really obscure, and I probably shouldn't have mentioned it... D:

I seriously didn't think that I'd finish this before I left for France... Then, I wrote like 4,000 words in one day in a fit of inspiration. Surprise! :D I have also nearly finished my **Fujiwara no Sai **costume; there are photos in my profile! Anyone attending either the Japan Expo in Paris or Animethon 15 in Edmonton should feel free to come up and say "hi" if they see me!

Anyway, I hope that you enjoy this long-anticipated chapter!

* * *

Naruto couldn't _believe_ that he hadn't remembered the Uchiha massacre sooner.

To be completely honest, all thoughts of Sasuke and Itachi and their family had slipped from Naruto's mind entirely. He had been understandably distracted by… other matters. Like instant ramen. And Iruka-sensei. And what pranks to play on the ANBU tomorrow.

But now that he was aware of it, the thought of the imminent Uchiha massacre weighed heavily on Naruto's mind. What could he possibly do to stop it? He may know that it was going to happen, but how would he go about preventing it? He would probably need backup, but who could he tell? Obviously, very few people would believe him, the accursed Kyuubi-brat. If he tried to go to the police, well, the vast majority of the officers were Uchiha, and they would be more concerned with the pressing question of just _what_ was he doing meddling in clan business? He could, of course, go to the current Hokage, but then the old man would ask questions that he would be hard pressed to answer, such as: "How do you know that in the first place?"

He _could_ try to stop Itachi himself, but even he couldn't kid himself into believing that he, at age eight, was a match for Uchiha Itachi. Even with his superior knowledge, gained through more than half a century of experience, the fact was that he simply didn't have the physical training just yet.

…He really shouldn't have slacked off so much in his training. He should have known that it would come back to bite him in the rear end.

Perhaps he could have a clone wander by on the exact date and sound the alarm before… but no, that wouldn't work. He couldn't even _remember_ the day that the Uchiha had been killed. Naruto hadn't exactly been paying attention the first time around, and his memories of this time were just a little bit dulled by the passing of the years. Sure, there _were_ some times of the year in which Sasuke grew more brooding, but with his overall less-than-cheerful demeanour, it was difficult to pick out "anniversary of my family's death" angst from the rest of it. Naruto supposed that he _could_ just wait around the Uchiha district every night until Itachi started looking like he was about to go off and become murderous, but the more time he spent there would increase his risk of being spotted and captured by a clan _famous_ for their eye techniques.

What could he do? He knew that the massacre would play an important role in what was to come, but in all honesty he didn't want to let dozens of people _die_ just so he would know for sure the path the future would take. He would have to do _something_. That was what being Hokage was all about, after all: protecting the citizens of Konoha.

…Even if they were arrogant, egotistical bastards.

* * *

Gaara's father was beginning to become a problem.

Wait: that statement was misleading. His father had _always_ been a problem. His defects as a leader were just being thrown into focus now, especially because Gaara now knew what to look for. Gaara had been immersed in the politics of Sunakagure for decades, and he hadn't stopped just because he was eighty-odd years in the past. He didn't have as much political clout, of course - none at all, in fact - but that didn't mean that he would ignore his surroundings. A detailed knowledge of the political climate of his village would only aid him in the years to come.

But back to the topic at hand: his father was, to put it plainly, a bad leader. The only thing he had going for him was that he was a half-decent ninja. Gaara had suspicions, though, that the only reason that a stronger shinobi hadn't overthrown the current Kazekage just yet was because any and all high-rising jounin seemed to mysteriously fail to come back from dangerous, S-class missions assigned to them especially by their leader.

That was just bad for business. Deliberately culling off strong ninja? The same ninja that provided the majority of the income for the entire village? No wonder Sunakagure's shinobi were considered inferior goods among the warlords of the Elemental Countries. Gaara hadn't been able to figure out why this was before, not having seen the "beginnings" of Suna's descent from respectability.

At the outset, Gaara wrote his father off as a lost cause. If Naruto were here, he would probably berate Gaara for giving up on the Kazekage so easily: _everybody can change!_ _You're proof of that!_ Gaara ignored this thought. The blond had never known the Yondaime Kazekage. He had never even met him in person, in fact. What would he know? Besides, Gaara hadn't had as much practice as Naruto had in the "changing people's outlooks on life" department. It really was much simpler to just get rid of the current Kazekage than to try to change him "for the better".

And so Gaara was waiting, patiently, for the moment to strike.

* * *

Naruto went through the motions of his day, still sorely distracted by the pressing problem of one Uchiha Itachi.

Perhaps… if he were to distract Itachi… Secure his loyalty for himself… Itachi had always been interested in power, right? What if he made him an offer…? But what could he possibly offer Itachi as an eight-year-old that the other couldn't get just as easily on his own? He'd probably just get laughed at and then killed for knowing too much.

Wait… did Itachi know of the Kyuubi sealed inside Naruto at this age? He certainly did after he joined the Akatsuki, but did he know beforehand or was he told later? He must have been very young at the time of the Yondaime's death… would he be old enough to know?

Would it even make a difference if he did?

Maybe it would. Itachi respected power, after all. Or at least Naruto thought that he did. And he was intelligent. So if Naruto offered him a better deal than the Akatsuki… Not that he knew what the Akatsuki were offering, but he was pretty sure that it was more than some pocket change, a few cups of ramen and the word of a demon-brat.

Of course, this was all assuming that Itachi was rational, and sane. For all Naruto knew, Itachi could be just psychopathic, plain and simple.

He had never found out the true reasons for Itachi's betrayal – Sasuke had killed him before he could be questioned about his motivations – but Naruto had his suspicions. Once he had ascended to the position of Hokage, he had become privy to some very interesting, classified documents. These papers had been buried and forgotten some time after the Uchiha massacre. Some of them pertained to the Uchiha clan: whispers of a conspiracy of the police force – completely run by Uchiha – to take control of the village by force. There were mentions of ANBU operatives spying within the family, and referrals to mission documents that no longer existed. It was all very mysterious. Perhaps he could dig up more information this time around, before it was shredded and made to disappear. Otherwise, he would be going into the situation blind.

And there was still the matter of how to gain Itachi's trust and loyalty.

He had no doubt that he would require the most infamous Uchiha to be on his side to prevent the massacre. Naruto fight the Uchiha genius head-on. At least, not physically. Verbally, perhaps…

But then again, Naruto did have one advantage (besides, well, foreknowledge of the event, to a certain extent): it is said that the only way to fight an Uchiha is with another Uchiha. It was rumoured that a bloodline descended from demons was the only thing that could combat a bloodline descended from demons. The cool thing was that Naruto had something better: an actual demon.

Of course, the Uchiha's famed bloodline was created to _combat_ his demon... somehow... but Naruto was fairly certain that he could work around that little problem. He'd run across more difficult challenges before.

The Kyuubi rumbled its discontent wordlessly from the back of Naruto's mind. The nine-tailed beast never spoke to Naruto unless he went inside his mind, before its cage and forced it to speak. Quite frankly, Naruto didn't _want_ to speak to his "tenant". Whenever the demon fox spoke, it was always about how many humans it had killed, how many mountains it had demolished, how many nations had crumbled before its mighty power, yada yada yada. Naruto could never get the Kyuubi to agree to anything he wanted unless it prevented Naruto's own death (and by proxy, extended the Kyuubi's existence). Oh, the nine-tails sometimes went along with Naruto's plans (feeding him from his stores of demonic chakra, and so forth), but even then 

the ex-Hokage had to be wary, as a compliant Kyuubi meant a scheming Kyuubi – the fox was probably trying to find a way to escape.

From what little he had spoken to Gaara on the topic, apparently Shukaku was even worse. Gaara's demon actively lied, schemed and yelled, disrupting the redhead's thoughts constantly. Naruto considered himself lucky, that the Yondaime Hokage had sprung for a very comprehensive seal. At least he didn't have to listen to the Kyuubi at all hours of the day and night... At least he could get it to _shut up_.

But as for providing information? The fox was next to useless. Considering that the Kyuubi was hundreds, if not thousands of years old, one would think that the nine-tailed beast would be a veritable _wellspring_ of exposition. Unfortunately, this was not the case. When the Kyuubi deigned to answer any of Naruto's questions, it was usually in the form of cryptic references to people and events that he had never heard of, and usually topped off with a variation of "and when I escape I shall destroy you and your village and everyone you love and anything else I come across," usually with more references to blood, death, and consuming things.

The Kyuubi had a one-track mind.

For all that the demon fox was _technically_ a sentient being, he was very much bestial in his thought processes.

Convincing the beast was going to be difficult.

* * *

After the sixteenth time that Uncle Yashamaru tried to kill him, Gaara almost snapped.

Almost.

Gaara had developed very good self-control over the years, you see.

But it was so _frustrating_. He was trying to make a difference, to win his uncle over, and some days he almost thought that he might have gotten through to Yashamaru in some small way... And then Gaara would walk into the living room and almost be decapitated by some garrotte wire strung at his height across the doorframe, or he would go into the library to read a half-finished scroll to find it coated in contact poison, or find himself fending off a barrage of explosive tags in the hallway on his way to the bathroom in the middle of the night… It was all very trying. It was always worse, though, seeing his uncle after a failed assassination attempt – the _look_ on the man's face, quickly and carefully covered up under a veil of false concern. Gaara could almost see the man thinking: _next time… next time the demon that killed my sister will die._

Irrationally, he had begun avoiding rooftops.

The roofs of a shinobi village are always reinforced as they take the brunt of the foot traffic among ninjas. Gaara was no exception – short of sand teleportation, the fastest way to get around the village was by way of roof. However, what with... unpleasant memories... It was as if he could stave off his uncle's death by avoiding the place that had been the scene of it.

Naruto was much more likable. He probably would have succeeded in winning Yashamaru over by now, if he were in Gaara's place… No. He couldn't think that. That was a defeatist attitude. He was competing _against_ Naruto. There was no way that he could concede defeat only months in. He could be patient… patient and determined.

Gaara focussed instead upon winning over civilians. They formed the majority, after all, even if they had less influence in village politics than shinobi did.

These children were as good a place to start as any. They were a similar group of children to the ones that he had run across playing ball, months ago. For all he knew, they may be the same ones. Gaara had difficulty recognizing the faces of those far below his notice. They were a bigger group than before, anyway; there were half a dozen or so of them, but they came and went during 

the course of the game in patterns that Gaara couldn't quite follow. Perhaps they had been declared "out", or were going to get snacks, or leaving because they were bored, or for some other reason that Gaara couldn't divine. Children were much more unpredictable than ninja were.

Gaara approached, slowly, as a group of children gathered in the courtyard. One of the kids noticed him as he got closer, and punched one of the other boys in the shoulder to get his attention. Then, they all turned to look at the demon in their midst.

"Hi." Gaara said, awkwardly.

"What do you want?" A kid with black hair asked as they all looked at the intruder with suspicion.

"Um, can I play with you?"

"My dad says that you're dangerous." The same kid declared. Other kids nodded in agreement, muttering 'yeah, yeah' amongst themselves.

"I won't hurt you."

"Yeah, but if you were _really_ dangerous, you'd say that so you could get close to us and eat us all up."

"I don't eat people." The kids looked doubtful. "Really. I had a muffin this morning, though. With raisins."

"Eww..." Several of the kids pulled disgusted faces. "Raisins..." Gaara was hard pressed to tell which they thought more disgusting – the thought of eating people, or dehydrated grapes.

"So... can I play with you?"

The same black-haired kid – apparently their spokesperson – looked Gaara up and down. "We're playing ninja. You can be the monster we're fighting, if you want."

Gaara considered this. It was a foot in the door, at least. "Fine."

The kid smiled. "Cool. Now stand over there, and look scary." He pointed at a low wall. "Hiromi, you go stand behind him. You be the princess."

"Why do _I _have to be the princess?" The girl – apparently Hiromi – whined.

"Because I said so! And you're a girl. Go on! I promise we'll rescue you soon." Hiromi looked at the boy with suspicion. "Go on! Both of you! And remember to look scary, monster!"

Gaara didn't play a very good monster, at first. To be fair, he was trying not to hurt the children. "Playing ninja" essentially entailed having the majority of the children (the "ninjas", of course) run at him, the monster, to rescue the princess. Fairly straightforward. Of course, running at a jinchuuriki with a very jumpy demon was extremely dangerous. Gaara had to focus more on subduing the instinctive movements of his sand than he did on evading his "attackers".

"Rawr! Hand over the princess, demon!" One of the kids yelled, shaking a stick (though where he had acquired a tree branch in the middle of the desert, Gaara had no idea) in the pantomime of a weapon.

He handed Princes Hiromi over to her rescuers, with very little struggle, because they had asked. This apparently wasn't what the kids wanted. Several of the boys scowled in tandem, and even the Princess didn't look terribly pleased to be rescued.

"Oh, c'mon! You're a monster! Fight!"

Gaara shook his head. They definitely didn't know what they were asking for. There was no way he'd go full out on a group of children.

"C'mon, what use are you, then?" The kid with the stick yelled, running at him.

Fine, then. If it meant that he would remain in the game... With barely a thought, the sand beneath the kid's feet raised itself. It only moved a few inches upwards, but it was enough to trip the kid and cause him to fall, flat on his face with a smacking sound. A hush fell over the group 

as all of the other kids stopped their taunting to stare at this new development. The kid on the ground didn't move.

'_...I must be careful.' _Gaara reminded himself. '_Children are fragile_.' He narrowed his eyes. '_But not that fragile. He can't be... dead.'_

Sure enough, after a moment, the boy lying prone popped his head up to stare at Gaara, the demon of the Sand. He opened his mouth. Gaara braced himself, mentally, for the screams. "Wow! Cool! You can move the ground!"

That was... unexpected. "...Yes." Gaara stated, slowly. "I can move any sand." '_Doesn't everybody in the village know – and fear – that?'_

The kid he had tripped grinned at that, jumping up. His clothes were streaked with dust and sand. "That's so cool! Do it again! When we're attacking!" The other kids joined in a chorus of "yeah!"s.

Gaara sighed, mentally, face inscrutable. Going from fearing death at his hands to not taking one of Suna's most dangerous jutsu seriously... it was an improvement (for him), at least.

"Fine. Give me back... the princess." Gaara deliberately made his voice gravelly, opening his eyes wider in a manner that he knew Naruto thought of as "creepy". He took a single step forward. The "ninja" took several steps back. Then, Gaara cleared his throat, and awkwardly stated: "Roar."

It was spoken like it was written, hardly "roar"-like at all, but it caused the spokesman child to grin. "Never, monster! You'll have to take her from us! Men, protect the princess! To the death!" He charged.

The edges of Gaara's mouth turned upwards just slightly, and the demon-brat of Suna tripped the kid with his sand. Several of the kid's "loyal ninja" laughed. Princess Hiromi shrieked with laughter as she was swept up by a gentle plume of sand to be placed behind the redhead.

"To the princess!" Another of the boys cried, undeterred by the shifting sand beneath his feet.

It wasn't until a few hours later, after he had successfully preventing the ninja from rescuing the princess without giving his attackers anything more than a few skinned knees... that Gaara realized that he was having fun.

* * *

Actually, convincing the Kyuubi to go along with Naruto's plan was surprisingly easy.

Naruto had slipped right into a meditative trance right after supper, and had followed the now-familiar route though his mind to the door of the Kyuubi's cage. Inside his own mind, he appeared much older and more grizzled. Naruto was pleased to note that his spiritual knees didn't twinge, despite the way the rest of him looked.

"What do you want, brat?" Of course, an elderly human was still infinitesimally young to a demon. Naruto got no respect from the beast. Ever. But that wasn't anything new.

Initially, he decided to go for the polite route, instead of the 'hey, do as I say, you damn fox' route. "I need your help with something."

This statement elicited a deep, barking laughter. "Why should _I _help _you_?"

So much for politeness. "I don't know, maybe because I can make sure that the Uchiha will never try to control you again?"

The Kyuubi growled lowly. "You cannot promise that, brat. If they can force their way into _your_ mind, they can force their way into _mine._"

Interesting. The Kyuubi was being surprisingly coherent today. That had almost been a straightforward answer!

Naruto shrugged, feigning nonchalance as best he could while standing in front of one of the most powerful demons in existence. Despite his apparent age, he felt much less frail in this "form" than he would have had he been a seven-year-old standing here. "How about... you're overdue for your rent? I haven't been housing you out of the goodness of my heart, you know."

The Kyuubi's enormous eyes narrowed, and it stared down its muzzle at the human before its cage. Okay, it wasn't buying it.

"Look, all you have to do is lend me a little bit of your chakra, and then the Uchiha won't blast you to pieces or turn you pink or whatever it is that those Sharingan eye thingies do to subdue you."

Then, the Kyuubi chuckled. It was a gravelly, deep and inherently malevolent laughter, one that Naruto recognized all too well. He would, in all likelihood, not like what the beast had to say next. "You are going to try to defeat Uchiha Itachi, aren't you, brat?" The beast's mouth widened in a threatening grin full of fangs. Its eyes flashed a deeper red. Naruto didn't deny it. "You will try, and you will fail." It proclaimed, all malicious glee.

"I don't think so," Naruto stated, calmly, in reply. His grey hair took on red overtones in the strange light thrown off by the beast's chakra, and even his own friendly face, wrinkled by laugh lines, looked sinister.

"Fate dictates your actions." Several of its tails coiled and writhed in the darkness behind it, just out of sight but not out of hearing. "You believe that you are working against fate, that you can change things. Big things. But _that_ is impossible. Your fate cannot be altered."

"Again, I don't think so." But a seed of doubt was planted in Naruto's mind. So far, he hadn't changed much. Certainly, things were different: he ate different foods, wore different things, talked to different people… but he hadn't changed anything major yet.

The beast's grin grew impossibly wide, as if it could feel Naruto's doubt. Some – most – of its teeth were taller than Naruto was. "It will be amusing to see you try."

"It will be amusing to prove you wrong." Naruto told his inner demon evenly.

The tailed beast growled again, low and deep in his throat. Naruto was used to such responses – the Kyuubi didn't often speak in words if it didn't have to, animalistic growls being just as good for simple concepts as anything else. This particular growl meant something along the lines of "I will go along with this stupid plan but only because I don't have anything better to do," but with more condescending overtones than human languages would allow.

Good. The former Hokage could handle a little bit of condescension. It practically rolled off of him like water, only it was less noticeable than that because while you could just ignore words, it is much more difficult to ignore wet clothing. Anyway, he could handle it if it meant that the Kyuubi was going to be providing him with chakra.

He'd gone over this with Neji once already: screw "fate."

The Uchiha wouldn't be killed on _his _watch.

* * *

After several months of attempting to "convert" members of his village to his cause (or at least get them to not run from him, screaming in fear), Gaara came to a realization. He had a grand total of zero allies within Suna who had any sort of political clout. He had very few allies, period. Thus far, he had only managed to secure the friendliness of a few shopkeepers and several dozen children; he wasn't entirely sure that even his siblings were all that enamoured with him at the moment. Sure, they weren't trying to kill him, but... There wasn't much point in thinking about his father or Yashamaru, either.

There wasn't much else that he could do. He would have to acquire allies.

That was how Gaara found himself knocking politely on the door to the grandmother of the most dangerous missing-nin Suna had ever produced: Chiyo.

Anti-climactically, nobody answered.

If Gaara had been in the habit of forming facial expressions, he would have pursed his lips at this blatant insult. So he wasn't even worth speaking to, was that it? Perhaps he would have drawn his eyebrows together and even frowned. As it was, the redhead looked just as blank as ever, and merely lifted his hand again to knock once more.

Once again, there was no answer.

Well, at least _he_ had _tried_ to be polite. He raised his hands and formed a single seal, placing a finger over his left eye. Some sand trickled from the gourd on his back and slid beneath the door, as if propelled by an invisible, but purposeful wind. Once on the other side, it solidified into a sand-coloured eye. With a twitch of his finger, Gaara had the eye turn around to examine the lock from the inside. It was a deadbolt – which was easily taken care of with a flick of sand – and a key lock. The lock he took care of by inserting a thin stream of sand into the keyhole. After that, it took him only a few moments to find the trip lever within the lock. It really was very simple when one can detect minute differences in pressure and texture in the metal.

The door opened with a click, and Gaara moved forward, into the house.

In all honestly, he would only be mollified if they were dead. They were being rude. He, the (soon-to-be) Kazekage wasn't in the habit of being ignored.

The siblings were old, but he knew that they hadn't died because they had lasted for nearly a decade longer than this in his time. Therefore, they were deliberately slighting him.

The house itself was relatively large, as befitting their grandiose reputation in Suna's history, but it was very barren. There were hardly any decorations anywhere. Sand coated the walls and covered the floors, a design feature that wasn't uncommon in the village hidden in Sand, where the most plentiful building supplies involved sand mixtures. Soon enough, Gaara came to the open atrium where the first famed Sand Siblings of Suna spent the majority of their time.

There were two people sitting at the edge of a pool – an expensive fixture to maintain in moisture-poor Suna. They were fishing, or pantomiming fishing.

One of the two was sitting suspiciously still. Shit. He hadn't meant it! He needed them alive!

He hopped up the stairs, all but blurring in his haste. "Chiyo-sama." He called out in a tone that was most unlike him; he had almost used an exclamation mark.

The ancient women started at the sound of his voice. She wasn't dead, then. "Keh! What are you doing, disturbing my beauty sleep? What do you want, brat?" It rankled, being called a "brat" by someone who was probably his equal in age.

Still, there was a time to be rude, and there was a time to be polite. Trying to obtain allies definitely fell under the latter situation. "Chiyo-sama, Ebizou-sama," Gaara began, bowing shortly to each. "I needed to speak with you.

Ebizou, Chiyo's brother, blinked slowly. "Oh! Sister! There is a boy, here!" He seemed to have just realized that someone else was in the room with him. Gaara snorted, internally, his face outwardly stoic. _He_ hadn't gone senile at that age.

"Yes, and I am wondering what this _boy_ wants." She pronounced the word 'boy' to rhyme with 'demon'.

Gaara bowed once again, despite the slight. "I wish to talk to you about my father."

"Who?"

"The Kazekage." Gaara elaborated, quietly.

"Eh? What number are we on, now? Four or five?"

"Four, Chiyo-sama. He is the Yondaime Kazekage."

"Ah, is that so? Keh." Chiyo made a noise of disinterest. "If you know our names, you should know that we don't enter into the world of politics anymore. We don't enter into the world at all."

Ebizou nodded ponderously in agreement with his sister. "The world belongs to the younger generations, now. You need to do things for yourselves."

Gaara stood before them, silently, for a few moments. He was painfully aware of how young he looked. Finally, in his usual blank tone, he said: "Sometimes, the 'younger generations' don't know what they are doing. They need help, and guidance, from their elders." _'Including me,' _he thought.

The ancient siblings seemed to consider this. Gaara waited for their replies. Thirty seconds passed, then a minute. Then, Ebizou's chin began to nod towards his chest, the man's eyes closing. Momentarily, he began to snore.

Gaara really hoped that _he_ never became senile. This was getting ridiculous.

Apparently, even Chiyo thought so as well. "Brother!" She called in her scratchy voice. "Brother! Wake up!" She turned to look back at the 'youngster' in their midst, with a leering grin on her face. "Continue. Just what do you want from me?"

"The Yondaime Kazekage is really bad for Suna. He is killing off loyal ninja to stay in power. Soon, sensing weakness, our enemies will be at our door. When the time comes, I would like you to... take up the mantle of Kazekage in his stead."

"Because you're too young yourself, is that it? Keh!" Gaara didn't deny it, but just met her eyes resolutely. "What about any of the council members? I'm sure that they are just itching for the job."

"The majority of the council are civilians and ninja older than you are. None of those shinobi have retained their strength the way that you have."

"Keh!" She grinned at the blatant compliment. "Fine! It'll be more interesting than fishing in a desert!" She grinned again. "I shall... take up the mantle."

"If the situation presents itself." Gaara clarified.

"If?" She cackled. She actually _cackled_. "Fine." She grinned cheekily, making the wrinkles of her face deepen almost grotesquely. "_When_ the situation presents itself, I'll start wearing that Kazekage hat that you seem so fond of. Just don't expect me to die very quickly." She narrowed her eyes at him. "I can read your intentions like a book, brat."

Gaara nodded his head in acknowledgement. He didn't entirely care what she thought of him, so long as she did what he wanted her to. However, knowing her… unique personality, he had serious doubts that things would turn out as he expected them.

In any case, he had found a replacement for his father's post. The Yondaime Kazekage's days were numbered.

* * *

It was purely by chance that Naruto found Uchiha Shisui's corpse. He had been "patrolling" the riverside with Kage Bunshin for several weeks without much hope of running across any suspicious Uchiha-massacre related activities. He had half planned to dissipate any bunshin witnessing such activities to alert himself, who would then "casually" lead his ANBU observers to the "scene of the crime", as it were, but… Now that the situation was at hand, he knew that he couldn't do anything without at least _trying_ to talk to Itachi himself. After all, he had gotten quite a reputation on the political scene for being able to convince even the most stubborn of people to change their ways. He had a lot of experience doing so, especially in his youth.

Naruto found Shisui of the Mirage floating, face-down in the Nakano River, caught in an eddy by a sandbank. Naruto had done a perfunctory vitals check as soon as he had dragged the body from the water. One touch to the man's cool skin was enough to confirm it: the (former) Uchiha was definitely and undeniably dead.

The body was fresh, though. Rigor mortis was only just beginning to set in, and the body didn't display any signs of bloating or rot. Naruto had seen enough dead bodies over the years to be able to estimate, roughly, the time of death. Shisui hadn't been dead for very long at all.

The Uchiha district wasn't all that far downstream, either.

That meant that his attacker – Uchiha Itachi – was likely still in the area. Naruto crouched lower over the body, glad for his shortness and the height of the reeds by the riverside, further lined by trees, allowing him – and the unfortunate Uchiha – to remain hidden from normal eyes. Unfortunately, Naruto was probably being watched by Sharingan eyes, which could see chakra and wouldn't be fooled by something as simple as a bed of reeds.

Naruto felt in his pockets quietly for anything that could be used as a weapon: a few bits of string, two paint brushes left over from a prank from yesterday, and his half-full Gama-chan purse. He could probably use Gama-chan as a bludgeoning instrument, but he seriously doubted he'd make a dent in Itachi's head with its padded cuteness. There were no weapons on Shisui either, which was unusual for a shinobi. Shisui really _had_ trusted Itachi, to go to meet with him unarmed. Naruto swallowed the bile that appeared in the back of his throat, suddenly realizing that he wasn't alone.

Naruto stood up and turned to face Itachi from across the river. The most dangerous missing-nin that the Uchiha clan had ever produced was standing quite calmly on the opposite bank, twenty feet or so away from Naruto, dressed casually in what Naruto had come to think of as the Uchiha "casual uniform" – dark shirt, emblazoned with the Uchiha clan's crest, and lighter shorts.

The boy was suddenly painfully aware of the fact that he was standing above the corpse of the other shinobi's (former) best friend. Itachi would have no compunctions about killing a young child that he didn't even know. Naruto swallowed once again, feeling greatly unprepared in this situation. It felt like one of those dreams where you suddenly realize that you've walked into an exam that you haven't studied for, and have forgotten your clothing. Only this feeling was ten times more intense, because the worst thing that could happen in _that_ situation is a failed exam and a feeling of eternal shame. Finding oneself standing, weaponless, in front of a murderer who had absolutely no problem with killing anything that stood in his way could result in permanent maiming or death.

But Naruto knew that it was far too late to pretend that he hadn't seen anything. He couldn't just walk away, not with Uchiha Itachi staring directly at him with blood-red eyes. His knees trembled, suddenly, with fear. '_I could __**die**__, here,'_ he thought, suddenly struck by the realization of his own mortality. '_I could die, and my body would_ _just disappear, and nobody would come looking because it was just the demon brat anyway, and if he's gone then all the better for us...'_ Naruto's eyes suddenly hardened. '_Like Hell I will_.'

"Good morning, Uchiha-san!" The jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi called out brazenly.

Well, he hadn't been known as the number one most surprising ninja for nothing. Naruto could _feel_ the Uchiha's surprise. Good. Naruto had managed to unsettle the other ninja. Now the ball was in Itachi's court.

There was silence for a good ten seconds. The water of the river between them flowed on, oblivious to the tension in the air. Never before had the distance between the two banks seemed so dangerously close to Naruto.

At least Itachi hadn't killed him outright. There was _that_, at least… It wasn't much of a silver lining, but it was acceptable. Perhaps Itachi would be reasonable.

That thought was shattered to pieces only moments later when a kunai cut through the air where Naruto's throat had been only a split second before he had instinctively dodged. It thudded into the wood of the tree behind him, a heavy and menacing sound. And suddenly the Uchiha was _far _too close – _when had he crossed the river?_ – and Naruto was scrambling to stay alive.

"Woah, woah- calm down!" Naruto cried, realizing as he spoke that he had never really sounded so young to his own ears. His only answer was another thrown kunai, followed swiftly by a pair of shuriken when Naruto proved agile enough to dodge the first weapon. "Hey, Uchiha-san!" Another shuriken whizzed by Naruto's cheek, nearly creating a fourth whisker there. This was getting ridiculous. "Hey! I need to speak with you!" He somersaulted forward to dodge an unexpected stab from a short sword –_when had Itachi gotten behind him? How fast __**was**__ he? _– a blade which he vaguely recognized as being standard issue for ANBU members.

Naruto knew that he was displaying far too much agility for a supposed eight-year-old child (very few, if any, children could successfully dodge ANBU captains trained in assassination), but he would rather keep his head on his shoulders with a blown identity than being anonymous and dead.

"Wait, wait! Come on, just-" Naruto threw himself to the side to evade another handful of shuriken. "Stop, already!"

Miraculously, he did. Naruto, having taken cover behind a particularly large tree, realized that Itachi had probably just run out of kunai for the moment. Still, it was a good a break as he was going to get.

"Hey, I need to talk to you!" Naruto called out from his hiding place, trying to sound confident. He succeeded only marginally, drawing upon all of his experience with false bravado (usually used when caught red-handed setting up pranks; that, and when he was bluffing in front of particularly ornery politicians). Naruto slowly inched around the tree, following the movement of the ANBU-trained ninja, keeping the tree between them at all times.

"And why should I not kill you right now?"

Naruto slowly peered out from behind the trunk to look at Itachi, revealing only his eyes and his spiky hair to his opponent. "I doubt you'd be able to." Before the Uchiha could go for another blade to prove him wrong, Naruto elaborated. "You're not the first one who has tried to kill me. As soon as you make the fatal blow, I'll just be healed by the Kyuubi's chakra." This wasn't strictly true, but very few knew of the extent of his abilities. But a little white lie couldn't hurt him, and in fact it was probably actively saving his life at the moment.

Itachi's dangerous eyes narrowed. "Granted, I may not be able to kill you, but there are other ways of silencing a person." The Uchiha's sharingan eyes shifted fluidly into their Mangekyou form.

Naruto quickly averted his eyes, staring at a point in the centre of Itachi's chest, which was marginally less capable of sucking him into a genjutsu from which there was no escape. "If you do that, then you won't hear what I have to offer in return."

The future of the Uchiha clan was in that one, long, calculating look. Naruto tried not to fidget.

"You are just a child," The thirteen-year-old ANBU member finally said. Naruto didn't tell Itachi that to him, it was the Uchiha who looked like a child. "You may have the power of a demon, but you cannot use it. Why should I listen to you?"

Naruto hesitated for one long, weighty moment. "Because I know what will happen to you if you walk down that road."

"Explain."

Again, Naruto paused. _What if it didn't work…?_ "You've already killed your best friend, to get the Mangekyou Sharingan. You're going to try to kill the Uchiha clan." Naruto didn't mention that he didn't know _why_ Itachi was going to do so. It was probably enough that he knew about the forbidden Sharingan technique. All he had to do was _appear_ as if he understood Itachi's reasoning. "You'll join the Akatsuki, an organization bent on destroying the world with the chakra of captured demons. They'll be stopped. But you – you won't even get to see the Akatsuki defeated. You'll be killed by your own little brother, who swore revenge the day you betrayed him and destroyed everything he cared about. Your death will be easier than he expected, because you had gone blind from using the Mangekyou too many times. You'll die, weak and blind, killed by someone who was never meant to catch up to you in power." The red-eyed ninja's eyes narrowed even further. Naruto inwardly cursed the inscrutableness of Itachi's facial expressions. "And besides, who said that I cannot use the Kyuubi's power?" Itachi's expression didn't change, but Naruto could almost feel the dark-haired boy's interest. Naruto's mouth slowly split into a grin, revealing a hint of fang, as the whisker marks on his cheeks grew bolder, and his own blue eyes turned red enough to match the Sharingan.

"You are the Kyuubi." Itachi stated, as if coming to a realization.

"Naww…" Naruto grinned more wildly, revealing more fang. "Something worse – a human mind who can use the Kyuubi's chakra. The Kyuubi is into mindless destruction more than anything; I can direct it. That's much more dangerous, don't you agree, Uchiha-san?" What was unspoken, but implied by the way that Naruto addressed Itachi was the subtle _'Your family can control the Kyuubi's mind, but you can't control mine_.'

"Do not try to distract me, Jinchuuriki." Ah, there was that title... Itachi knew what he was. "How do you know of... my future? If what you have told me is indeed true."

Naruto smiled again. "I'm from the future." He said, flatly.

Itachi didn't react.

"Seriously." Naruto insisted.

Again, there was no reaction on behalf of the stoic Uchiha. Then, finally, he blinked, slowly. "Accepting, for the moment, that you are telling the truth, Jinchuuriki... If I am dead... what happened to you? Are you trying to prevent a war?"

Naruto laughed. "Kind of. Well, no. Not really. Well technically..." He considered, thinking of the myriad of small wars that had occurred during his reign. "No, none in particular. Not really. And to answer your first question... I'm the Hokage."

If Itachi's face wasn't so unreadable, Naruto would have identified that expression as a disbelieving look.

"Believe it." Naruto told him, seriously.

"What could you hope to gain from telling me all of this?"

"I want you to do the right thing. You don't really want to kill your family, do you?" Naruto was going out on a limb with this...

There was something in Itachi's expression that spoke of intransigence. "It is not so simple."

Something about the Uchiha's tone _irked_ Naruto. Throughout this discussion, Naruto had been slowly inching out from behind the tree that he had been using as a shield. Momentarily forgetting that this was a much more dangerous Uchiha than Sasuke, whom he normally verbally sparred with, Naruto emerged completely from behind the tree and spat out: "Stop with the "lone warrior" crap! This isn't a game!" Naruto knew that these words sounded particularly strange, coming out of the mouth of a young child, but as long as his point came across, he wasn't terribly bothered by the incongruities. "Of _course_ it's that simple! You have two choices: you either do the right thing, or you don't." It was a child's logic, but that didn't mean that it didn't ring true. "You need to do what's best for Konoha. It's what we're trained to do, isn't it? We're both Konoha ninja, after all."

Uchiha Itachi slowly nodded, although whether it was in agreement with his statement or just an acknowledgement that he understood what had been said, Naruto had no clue.

Naruto had said his piece. There wasn't much he could do otherwise. He could only hope that Uchiha Itachi would make the right decision.

Then, Naruto looked directly into Itachi's eyes. He knew the danger. But this incredibly simple action spoke of a great amount of trust: Naruto _trusted_ that Itachi wouldn't place a genjutsu on him.

The tomoe in the sharingan eyes swirled once more, then faded to an almost normal looking black, but Naruto didn't feel the telltale prickling of genjutsu along his skin.

Itachi nodded, briefly, at him, in respect. Naruto allowed himself a small smile. He... he had gotten through to Itachi! He had done it! Naruto nodded back. In the split second that Naruto's gaze was averted, Itachi threw a shuriken at his neck.

It was a killing blow. Luckily for Naruto, he was never there in the first place.

* * *

Naruto blinked as the memories of his bunshin's encounter with Itachi flooded his brain. It was a good thing that he, in his original body, hadn't been doing anything more complicated than putting some water on to boil. He had just set down the pot on the stove; if he had still had it in his hands, he would have dropped it, distracted by all of the new memories integrating themselves in his psyche.

Turning the burner on to bring the water to a slow boil, Naruto reviewed his new knowledge.

Well, that encounter had gone as well as could be expected. In fact, he actually felt optimistic, even though Itachi had tried to kill him in the end. That final action was probably a test – to see if Naruto was indeed the ninja he said that he was. The Uchiha would definitely recognize Kage Bunshin, so unless Itachi came bursting through the window of his apartment in the next hour or so to do him in or otherwise "silence" him, Naruto assumed that he had gotten away scot-free. Perhaps he had even achieved a position of respect in Itachi's regard – if he was capable of an advanced jounin technique, after all, perhaps Itachi would believe him about the rest of the things he had said (i.e., being from the future and thus knowing the fate of the Uchiha clan).

It felt strange, feeling his bunshin's fear of death. Most of the time, his bunshin knew, intellectually, that they were bunshin, but because they were exact replicas of he, himself, all the way down to memories and emotions, they often forgot that they couldn't die. Anyway, it was a good thing that he hadn't left a bunshin with the ANBU today and hadn't gone himself...

Of course, now that he had gotten that Uchiha business out of the way – hopefully – he could now focus on other matters.

Like ramen. '_...Well,_' Naruto conceded to himself as he dropped his favourite noodles into the bubbling water to cook, '_Ramen, __**and**__ winning over Iruka-sensei.'_

It was difficult, sitting in class and seeing Iruka watch him cautiously out of the corner of his eye, not unlike how a civilian would keep an eye on a rabid dog. Still, even though it was... distressing... Naruto could handle it. He had quickly remembered how to ignore glares and furtive whispers. Depressingly, it was like riding a bike – he had never really forgotten how to do so.

Still, as long as he kept seeing his old teammates, Sakura and Sasuke, everyday, he could stand it. Even if they weren't friends with him just yet, they were young, happy and alive, and that was what counted.

That was why he was so horrified to walk into class one day, less than a week after he had spoken with Itachi, to see Sasuke absent. At first, he tried to tell himself that Sasuke had just taken a day off because he was sick or something. But Naruto couldn't remember Sasuke ever being absent – that wasn't how the Uchiha worked. Uchiha didn't _become sick_ (they were too perfect for that), and even if they did become... indisposed, they worked through it and went about their duties anyway. Sasuke would have had these thoughts pounded into his head from a young age. He wouldn't skip school because of a head cold. Still, Naruto hoped that maybe today was an exception...

But then he saw the subdued look on Iruka-sensei's face, and the furtive, whispered conversations amongst the academy teachers, all the while glancing at the conspicuous empty place at the end of the row where Sasuke normally sat. A horrible feeling began to grow in Naruto's chest. His throat felt tight. It couldn't be...

Then, Iruka-sensei began the lesson with following sombre statement: "Class, last night, there was an attack in the Uchiha district..."

Naruto didn't need to hear the rest. Unfortunately, he had heard it all before. With the stealth that an academy student shouldn't possess, Naruto slipped quietly out of the classroom window, unnoticed by his classmates, who were still shocked at the news that they were being imparted with.

* * *

The Hokage monument was only a small portion of the cliff face itself. The initial sculptors had left room for the faces of future leaders of Konoha, and so there was actually quite a bit of uncarved rock towering above the village, along with the watchful gazes of former Hokage. Naruto wasn't sitting on any of the heads in particular, but on top of the lump of stone where his likeness would eventually be carved. He used to come up here to think. His face had once been one of the most tangible reminders of his rule. Now, it was only so much raw stone.

Naruto felt rage, and frustration… He shouldn't have trusted Itachi. How could he have felt so optimistic about that encounter? Looking back... Itachi had attempted to kill him! Many times! There was no... _respect_ there! Only arrogance!

But more than anger, Naruto felt disappointed. Not only in Itachi, but in himself.

He had failed: as a leader, as a protector, as a ninja. How could he face anybody, especially Sasuke, knowing that he hadn't even been able to prevent a devastating event that he had known well in advance would happen?

He was an idiot. No question about it. He really did deserve the title of "dead last". It was more appropriate than any title he had received thus far. He was clueless, and useless.

He hadn't tried hard enough. He hadn't been strong enough. And a whole family had died because of it.

* * *

"Old man… can I talk with you for a minute?"

A harried looking Hokage barely glanced up from his massive pile of reports. Losing the majority of one's police force in one fell swoop was a contingency that Konoha had never prepared for, and people seemed to generate paperwork as a defense mechanism against not knowing how to deal with the situation. "I'm sorry, Naruto, but I'm really busy at the moment, and I'm expecting someone–"

"Please?" The older man sighed and was about to refuse until looked up and saw the expression on Naruto's face. He had seen such looks before, on battle hardened ninja, just about to snap and spiral into depression. There was a hollowness in Naruto's eyes that didn't belong on the face of an eight-year-old. The Hokage forced a small, welcoming smile and said, "Of course, Naruto. Come in. And shut the door behind you." Naruto did so. "Sit, sit." The old ninja gestured at the chair in front of his desk, both of which were covered in stray papers. "Just hand me that stack on that chair, won't you?" Mechanically, Naruto gave him the pile of paperwork, sitting stiffly on the chair.

The Hokage looked at him, considering. Just what was wrong? "Why don't you make yourself comfortable? Would you like some tea?"

The boy shook his head, slowly, at the Hokage's offer, but did draw his legs up onto the seat, wrapping his arms around them in a gesture that Sarutobi recognized as instinctively defensive. Something was definitely wrong. Had someone hurt him? "Naruto, are –"

"Old man?" The boy interrupted, shakily. "Am I a bad person?"

"Naruto, who – why would you think that?" '_Had someone told him about the Kyuubi...?'_ Sarutobi thought with a sinking suspicion.

"Only, I can't seem to do anything right, and –" Those were tears. Naruto was crying. The Hokage decided, then and there that '_Yes, heads would roll...'_

"No, Naruto," The Hokage began, almost helplessly. "You're not a bad person. Why on earth would –"

"I just..." Naruto swiped one sleeve against his eyes. "It's just... I wanted to stop it, and..."

Sarutobi must have gotten a horrified look on his face, because the boy stopped speaking, mid-sentence. "Naruto, what happened? Did someone ... do something to you?"

"What?" Naruto's head popped up, dislodging a few more tears to join the ones that already ran in rivulets down his scarred cheeks. "No, I... I..." He looked back down, mumbling something. The Sandaime only caught one word: "Uchiha".

"Naruto, could you repeat that?"

Naruto sniffed again, avoiding the Hokage's gaze. "I... saw Uchiha Itachi. Right before he... he..."

"You... you _saw_ Uchiha Itachi?" Sarutobi asked, in confirmation. '_Did Naruto even know Itachi well enough to recognize him by sight...?'_

Naruto nodded slowly, still staring at the ground. "Yeah. With Uchiha Shisui. Shisui was dead."

"Naruto, why didn't you –"

"I tried talking to him!" Naruto cried out, almost hysterically. "I tried! I really did!" He sniffed, wiping at his runny nose with one increasingly damp sleeve.  
"Why didn't he kill you?"

"I was a kage bunshin."

"Why didn't you tell anyone?" Naruto looked awkward, ashamed. He was resolutely avoiding the Sandaime's gaze. "Naruto..."

"He... threatened me." Naruto said, slowly, as if trying to convince both the Hokage and himself.

"Threatened you?"

"Yeah, um... he tried to kill me. But I was a bunshin, right? A kage bunshin? And I was going to say something to someone, but, then, all the Uchiha were killed before I... and... I really should have said something, shouldn't I?" The boy was crying again.

'_So that's the crux of the matter_.' Sarutobi got up and walked around the desk, kneeling before the boy in the chair. He took the blond's small shoulders in his calloused and wrinkled hands and forced the boy to meet his eyes. "Naruto, you can't feel responsible for the deaths of all of the Uchiha. You are a child. You didn't know that that was what Itachi was going to do. You couldn't have known." But Naruto just began crying harder, his shoulders shaking. Sarutobi sighed, knowing that his words just weren't reaching the boy, then gathered the trembling child into his arms in a strong hug. "It's all right. It's not your fault." Naruto just kept shaking.

The door to Sarutobi's office opened and the ninja who had just entered there paused, unsure. Sarutobi gestured for the shinobi there to go out and close the door. With hand signals, the Sandaime explained that he would handle their appointment momentarily when he was finished. With the slightest of hesitations, Umino Iruka backed out of the office and shut the door, as silent as his ninja training could make his actions.

* * *

'_That was… unexpected_.' Iruka thought as he quietly shut the office door, leaving the Hokage and… the boy together in the office. The academy teacher had had a scheduled meeting with the Hokage to discuss Uchiha Sasuke's mental health, and what he, as his teacher, was to do to help when the boy returned to the academy. Iruka was just about the only friendly authority figure _left_ for Sasuke. However, Iruka hadn't expected to walk into the office and find it occupied by… Uzumaki Naruto. A crying Uzumaki Naruto. Iruka could still hear the quiet keening sounds and the Hokage's quiet murmuring, through the door. He hadn't even known that the brat was capable of crying.

Of course, it could just be a prank on the kid's behalf. Foxes were renowned for being tricksters, after all. '_But those don't sound like crocodile tears_…'

Iruka made himself scarce, busying himself with some paperwork at the mission's desk, until he felt the source of demonic chakra leave the Hokage's office, over half an hour later. Only then did he return to the Hokage's office, being sure to knock on the door. The Sandaime immediately called for him to enter.

Sarutobi was back at his desk, surrounded by paperwork. Iruka felt almost guilty for having to add to that already teetering pile.

"Ah, Iruka-kun. I'm sorry that I had to postpone our meeting. It was… urgent."

"Urgent, sir?"

The Hokage sent him a distracted smile. "Naruto-kun… he feels his classmate's loss keenly. He feels bad that the boy is… like him, now. Alone."

Iruka had a feeling that this wasn't the whole story – if it _was_ the story at all – but he couldn't exactly question the Hokage, so he just nodded. The Hokage was looking at him expectantly, though. "Yes, sir, I understand." He added, hoping to move on to less painful topics.

"Do you, Iruka-kun?" Again, there was that _look_.

"Sir?"

"You were already orphaned at his age, right?"

Again, Iruka began to get a sinking feeling in his chest. All of his ninja training seemed to be on the alert – _Danger! Danger! Retreat! –_ but he couldn't retreat from the Hokage's presence without being dismissed.

"You understand what Naruto-kun going through right now," The Hokage elaborated. "He is alone, without any adults to talk to… Besides me, of course, but I can't connect with him as well as someone closer to him in age would."

Iruka saw, with a growing feeling of horror, just where this conversation was going, but decorum specified that he couldn't interrupt.

"Besides, I have a myriad of duties that I must attend to, and I am certain that you would have more time to attend to him than I would." Now, it wasn't just about the Kyuubi brat, it was a matter of serving the Hokage, Iruka realized.

"Iruka-kun?" Iruka snapped out of his daze, realizing that he had been staring blankly at the Hokage's hat. Apparently _now_ he was required to answer.

"Sir?"

"You really are the best person for the job." Iruka noticed that the Sandaime specified 'person' and not 'ninja'.

"But he – he killed –"

"No, Iruka-kun." The Hokage interrupted, voice hard. "I think that you'll find that _he_ didn't. He laughs, cries, and bleeds the same as we do. He isn't the beast."

Involuntarily, Iruka remembered the scene he had walked in on less than an hour before. The boy had looked very distraught… had it all been an act…? Could it have been?

"I... I can't just..."

"Iruka-kun… I'll make it a mission, shall I?" The Hokage's eyes were kind. "If it'll make you feel better about all of this business. I know how hard this is for you." _That_ certainly was an understatement.

"What? A mission?" Iruka gave a weak chuckle. "'Umino Iruka, chuunin, hereby ordered to "be nice" to Uzumaki Naruto?'"

The wrinkles around the Hokage's eyes grew more pronounced as he hid a smile. "I am certain that I can find a more professional way to phrase it in the mission statement." Sarutobi said with a completely straight face.

Iruka gave a formal bow. "Well then, I accept the mission, Hokage-sama."

* * *

**Next Chapter: Pulling Ahead in the Race**

* * *


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